Succinct and pithy. Farm owner posting sign to potential new buyers of development housing being built next door on a former horse farm.
i have to say I never thought about the third point though!
Love the sign and hope it works to help them keep their current zoning. 
Love it!
There is controversy about the drive in some places to pass “right to farm” laws.
Seems that those laws may cause even more division and demonize farmers even more than society is doing today:
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Commentary--Pushing-a-Right-to-Farm-267357571.html
May end up like with industrial zoning, farming zoning, which in many ways it is really not necessary.
Much of farming is not objectionable to reasonable people, just as much of manufacturing is not.
I think that people really should just be more considerate of each other, all around.
With the general grumpiness in society today, that may be asking too much.
Real farmers deserve protection. Nothing more offensive than “yuppie scum” moving to the country and then complaining about country sights and sounds (and smells.)
In our area (suburban NJ) however, there has arisen a major farm entertainment industry. Example: there is what used to be a traditional farm about one-half mile from my house. Have orchards and fields. In the fall they do “pick your own”–apples, peaches, pumpkins, etc. The tractors load up and hauls trailers full of kids and families, or school groups of kids and teachers, for an exciting (?) 15 ride to the fields, through suburban streets. Start at 8 AM, go until dark, at about 20-30 minute intervals. Seven days/week. Parking in the area a nightmare. Diesel tractor smell pervasive. Screaming children a given. Picked but suddenly unwanted fruits and vegetables thrown into the streets.
Protected as a business because it is a farm. I have very mixed feelings about this.
I understand their frustration. One of my friends had similar problems. She moved to a small farm that was surrounded by other farms including cattle. Her next door neighbor didn’t like it that someone had moved in with horses. He did everything he could imagine to try to get her out. Called the fire department, city code office, police, threw broken glass in the paddocks with the horses, cut down the fences, put out poison for her dogs to eat, threw paint all over her trailers, let the air out of her tires on her truck and trailers, just because he didn’t like the sounds the horses made and the smell of the poop even though she picked the paddocks twice a day. People can be such jerks instead of using common sense to find a place that suits their needs.
There is right to farm legislation in BC, it has its good and bad side…but does not protect the farmland that is constantly being taken out of the farm reserve by pro-development councils lobbying the Reserve bank.
Spot zoning is their buzz word, but you have to have council’s ear, i.e. $$$.
I missread a version of that sign when I first saw it as “Farmers make funny noises, smell bad and have sex outdoors”.
It took me a few seconds to realise it really said “farm animals” not “farmers”.
[QUOTE=tangledweb;7672254]
I missread a version of that sign when I first saw it as “Farmers make funny noises, smell bad and have sex outdoors”.
It took me a few seconds to realise it really said “farm animals” not “farmers”.[/QUOTE]
Uh, what you thought you read may actually be true in some areas! :lol:
Love it. It’s not uncommon for a development to spring up next to a farm and for people to buy houses there because of the farm and then to start complaining about the farm once they’ve moved in.
I know of one such situation in Jersey where the development people so frustrated the farmer he decided to quit - and then they fought his plans to sell to another developer because they wouldn’t have that nice view of a farm anymore. (They lost).
People are just amazing.
Here it is an economic pressure more than anything because the pre-existing farms have agricultural zoning and are protected from residential disapproval. The tempting value of those farms turned into other things is the impetus for change. There may even be disincentives here (to develop farmland) such as county resistance to allow a farmer to rezone his property, but enough money overcomes all.
My impression too is that much of the agricultural property, not including the farms in the Ontario/Chino areas, is owned by mega corporations. The ranch land of south Orange County, owned by Rancho Mission Viejo, LLC, is being developed into a planned community.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/mission-345695-moiso-rancho.html
An engineer acquintance working on that project told me that the land for the new Rancho Mission Viejo was sold for several billion dollars to the building developers. Just the land. And I believe they don’t have to do any legal stuff because the general plan and zoning is done. I can’t find any data or websites to support that but the point is that the high value of land in California is the incentive for farms to disappear, not pressures by neighbors.
I wonder how The Oaks will be affected by this new development?
Another thing, if the developers think that putting in high priced housing won’t bother the farms, they’re wrong. One of the farms I worked for was surrounded by upper middle class homes. There’s chain link fences with barbed wire all around the farm but it doesn’t stop them from throwing things over the fence and their kids always managed to find a way onto the farm. On top of taking care of the horses, we also had to round up loose children. These kids always were found around the stallion complex and running in between the paddocks that housed the teasers.
Many of the farms in Lexington are disappearing and being turned into developments. It’s sad plus it drives up the prices, taxes, and the headaches.
I’ve seen this before, it’s brilliant.
Here in Polk County, NC, (Tryon, etc.) residents of the Collinsville area – a 4,000-acre area in the SE part of the county that still has many “real” farms in addition to horse farms – banded together to request “Agricultural-Residential/Very Low Density” zoning specifically to keep out suburban-type developments, for all the reasons posters have mentioned. Because the zoning was voluntary, with more than 90% of the landowners in favor, the zoning was unanimously passed by county commissioners back in 2007. We have a 5-acre minimum for all building lots; it’s the second 5-acre minimum in the county, following Hunting Country.
While five acres is the minimum lot size for new developments, properties in Collinsville go from 5 to more than 100 acres (average size ±20) and it’s home to the Collinsville Equestrian Trail Association, wherein neighbors share and maintain linking trails from one property to the next. Not every property owner participates but we have more than 50 miles of contiguous trails and many of the participating properties are owned by non-horsepeople who are just willing to let us ride through. It’s a little bit of heaven.
Maybe it could work in other areas of the country… worth a shot!
My county released a “Things you may want to consider before moving to the country” brochure, complete with a scratch n’ sniff sample of manure. 
Way to go, Ottawa County!
https://www.miottawa.org/Departments/Planning/pdf/LandUseProjects/AgDisclaimer.pdf
I love it! Consider yourselves warned, ey?
After I win the lottery and buy a huge farm somewhere, I’m dying for the property owner next to me to put up that sign, so that I can put up my own sign saying, “I do or possibly may have done all those things too.”
The post about new arrivals hating the farm smells but protesting any change to “their” viewshed rings very true. Totally agree that farming ops need to be protected. Or rather, that people are allowed to pursue any permitted activities on their land as long as they’re following the rules.
But, that sign the OP posted is being used here in a very cynical way by some folks here. I don’t like when it’s used by people who think it’s ok for THEM to build their houses, but no one else is allowed in. There’s a road where many of the properties are still zoned Ag, but in general the only farming taking place is hay, and some pastured cattle (i.e. pastoral, idealized scenery–exactly what these McMansion owners think they’re buying when they move out of town). One person whose husband died has begun proceedings to get her land subdivided so a developer can build a bunch of new homes there. Well, neighbors (who don’t actually farm–they’re totally McMansion types–but have Ag zoning) have told this widow that they will put in a hog operation if she follows through. And they put that exact same sign up along the road, to discourage potential homeowners. Mind you, these protesters would be the FIRST to complain about smells, noise, traffic (and they do, all the time). There’s no way they’d ever tolerate a hog operation. That kind of NIMBY crap just chaps my ass. Newsflash, people: If you don’t want the view or land use around you to change, BUY MORE LAND. If you want to tell your neighbor how to use their land, show up with a check that pays their mortgage. Simple as that.
[QUOTE=tangledweb;7672254]
I missread a version of that sign when I first saw it as “Farmers make funny noises, smell bad and have sex outdoors”. [/QUOTE]
See? I thought they were referring to some of my neighbors…
Reminds me of the homeowner who flipped off developers buying up 2-flats & tearing them down to put up 4-floor condos. Turning formerly quiet urban neighborhoods into trendified meccas full of former suburbanites.
She hung a banner off her 2nd floor balcony saying:
DIE YUPPIE SCUM!
