.
For those landowners who are not able to place their land in easement, there are other options that not only preserve the land, but in some cases can offer tax savings during your lifetime as well as pass assets to beneficiaries tax free.
Please consider a Purchase of Development Rights option. (Fauquier County has one - check your jurisdiction)
Also consider tax savings vehicles such as Charitable Remainder Trusts. Such estate planning options can include real estate. Large charities such as AFT can provide the documents for you - you consult your own attorney.
Another option is a life estate - which can be combined with other estate planning tools which allow the present owner to remain in the home until death - then the property can pass to an entity that will protect it in some fashion (it has to be consistent with their mission - so check into conservation charities such as PEC, AFT, or other conservation entities).
For many farmers, the only asset they have is their land. They work their butts off all their lives, and when they are no longer able to work - the only way to survive is to sell the land. However - it does not have to be that way. It is possible for a landowner to protect their land, pass it along to a young farmer through American Farmland Trust, and still be able to enjoy financial stability in their old age.
So please - if you own land - check into the many options available.
Actually there may be a small ray of hope. The Virginia General Assembly is currently considering measures to allow localities to better control development. Tim Kaine discussed this pretty regularly during his run for governor. Here are a handful of bills that will require increased impact fees (HB141; HB820; HB1197), increased proffers (HB1506) and allow localities to deny rezoning if adeqaute water resources are not available (HB1318). Many of you may recall that similar legislation failed last year, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t keep trying. I think Kaine did a decent job of connecting the dots between transportation and land use planning, so now’s the time to ride that wave (I know–I’m mixing my metaphors).
Most of the current bills are before the House of Delegates in the Counties, Cities and Towns Committee. Please take a moment to see if your legislator sits on this committee, because this is where land use legislation is made in the state. Here’s the link for the Committee membership :
You can also find it through the General Assembly website.
Contact your legislator and tell them that you support these measures. This is especially important if your legislator is a member of this committee. Bills have to be voted out of committee before they reach the floor, so that’s where much of the critical work is done.
Pardon my didactic tendencies; many of you probably already know this. As others have said, local governments can only do what the state allows them to do. The folks on this committee are the ones who truly hold the power.
Updated to add that the transportation impact fee bill (HB141) was reported out of committee on Friday. I sent Del. Joe May an email asking if he would let me know when his public facilities impact fee bill (HB 820) will be up for a hearing. Again, for folks whose legislators serve on the Cities, Towns and Counties Committee (Ingram (Chairman), Marshall, R.G., Orrock, Dudley, McQuigg, Suit, Oder, Marshall, D.W., Hurt, Cole, Iaquinto, Crockett-Stark, Lohr, Waddell, Hall, Hull, Jones, D.C., Spruill, Amundson, Armstrong, Ware, O., McEachin), please contact your legislator in support of this measure. Not sure who your delegate is? Find out on the General Assembly website (link above).
Stepping off soapbox for now…
JS is right. The Fairfax County Supervisors are in a blue funk because the developers around Tyson’s want to build fewer, but more expensive houses. This means that there definitely won’t be any housing that police, teachers and firemen can afford. The village center concept doesn’t work because most people can’t afford to live where they work or they change jobs or the job location changes on them. The developers are selling the idea because it means greater profits for them and lets face it folks, the developers own Virginia, they just let us live here.
Wateryglen, it would be nice if the McMansions were 20 feet apart. Look closely, most are 8 to 12 feet apart which means that if one catches on fire, they will all burn because that lovely plastic siding is highly flamable and there are no fire code standards for “single famiy” homes because it is assumed they are far enough apart to not spontaneously set each other on fire. LOL.
With the Dillons Rule, every time a locality does something to make or encourage developers to contribute to the infrastructure, the Big D’s go to the GA and have it overturned. They got the lunie (sp) tunes board in Loundoun just long enought to vest all their projects. You can bet money they will pave Loudoun and soon.
Good luck. You’ll need to watch this board. Back in the late 80’s when everything in the county was A-3 the board would routinely grant rezonings to higher densities. effectively rezoning the county. You’ll have to be ready to fight this. Those developers didn’t pay millions for nothing.
This topic is getting hot with you guys, and has strayed a bit.
First thing to realize for ALL, is that low-density housing wipes out farmland the fastest.
Now, get over the notion that everyone has to live in a SF home with a large yard, to be landscaped with invasive, non-native ornamentals 
.
The region IS growing fast. There are housing needs.
Oh, and please, please remember that suburbs and housing do not pay in taxes what they use in services. So, you need to make sure to include business uses, since those provide a much higher return in taxes for the local government who is expected to provide the services, schools, snow removal, trash, etc.
For an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, go to Leesburg, where Centex homes was trying to put in 1300 homes on 212 acres, including some commercial space, multifamily housing, townhouses and SF homes. That had people screaming about “traffic, congestion, too dense” and oh, NOBODY wants multifamily housing in THEIR neighborhood, especially not in their neighborhood of 6000+ sq ft homes on 3-10 acre lots. So, Centex tried again, taking out the MF housing, and dropping it to something like 1100 homes, scaled back the business uses and tried again. Still, a huge outcry. Oh, did I forget to mention this took over 2 years of wrangling with paperwork, zoning, planning commission, etc.
So, now…Centex is bulding 192 homes on that 212 or so acres, “by right” development, no zoning applications to go through, no screwing around with the county gov’t, the planning commission, etc. Now, do the math. There would have been housing 1100 families in the scaled back version, now less than 200 families. What about the 900 families that would have bought these places? Where do you think they will be looking? Oh, wait, Winchester is allowing development like mad, Jefferson County, WV, Warrenton…and guess what, the traffic is still there.
Oh, and the 212 acres, developed. Done, finished. Not open space, not foxhuntable, not even suitable for trail riding anymore.
Why are so many of you adamantly opposed to high density development? Just because YOU live on a farm does not mean that YOUR lifestyle is right for everyone. What is wrong with townhouses or closely spaced housing? I’m sure there are many people who would rather live without massive amounts of yard to take care of.
While the logic of “we have to keep building to support the economy” is quite flawed, we DO have to provide housing for workers in a growing economy. All workers, all professions are the same, they all need a place to live.
You cannot simply say NO development, not in a growing economy, it is irrational and unlikely to happen. You cannot sit there and shoot down every alternative development plan that people come up with.
And you might want to rethink your scoffing at various forms of high-density housing. If I ever got out of horses, I’d be ALL over living in the city.
Mel
Sorry - jetjocky - I didn’t want the thread to be closed down because it was no longer “purely” hunting related - and the link I posted was a political blog.
But yes - hunting and politics must mix. I can only speak for myself, but I annoy my reps constantly - not just before the legislative session. Actually, I suspect that my rep on the Board of Supervisors is starting to avoid me in the grocery store! Hmmm… he still hasn’t responded to my most recent email…
la gringa local - the apts. above stores which you refer to is now being called “workforce housing” by developers. It’s another way to shove a butt ugly development through by saying, Look, we’re offering low cost housing for teachers and firemen - aren’t we wonderful! And yes, the most recent “workforce housing” caca doo doo did mention those professions by name.
I guess teachers and firefighters don’t need to live in a nice home. They can just live above a liquor store or tattoo parlor. After all - they are just “workforce” and don’t need a backyard for their dog, or a playset for their kids.
Don’t get me started on this - I am in a lousy mood after reading the most recent report from the General Assembly. Yuck.
I was actually referring to the foxhunters I personally know - and those I’d called the night before to encourage them to come. But … Piedmont met 3 farms down from my farm Saturday afternoon and …I guess sport wins out over civic duty for most people. 
Anyway I did stroll down the road after the hunt to specifically to get the details on who had been medi-vacced out (by the helipcoper, I found out, after the gentleman took a bad fall over a new coop WHILE I was at the zoning board meeting), and talked to a few friends – all of whom were very interested to hear about the meeting.
So…hope springs eternal. People are interested, and maybe I might get to drag one or two out to a meeting before the zoning changes are all scribed in stone.
One more word about NU and I’ll bow out. NU in theory sounds great - I really fell behind it in a strong way. Planning, villages, live where you work, community.
Untill I saw it put into practice. Think about it - who can actually work where they live? If I owned a dry cleaners and the community was big enough to support me, yes. But most people come in with exsisting jobs and in order to afford to live there have to keep them. I have seen the concept adopted by developers who want to keep things upscale (no shoebox starter homes) and get more density out of an acre. Here is a dense development with greenspace around it (that isn’t guarenteed to stay despite what they promise) and lots of traffic feeding out into a rural country road. Pretty soon convenience stores pop up on the boundry of the greenspace and traffic lights have to be installed…you get the picture. Yes, right to think about alternatives to sprawl, but don’t be suckered in by something dressed up to appeal to sophisticates. Just beware, that’s all.
,
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Another update: I received an email from Joe May this afternoon and unfortunately his public facilities impact fee bill has died in committee. Well, here’s to next year, I guess. 
I also checked the status of the other bills and they have had no further action reported on the General Assembly website.
Would you please stop changing your bb name every 5 minutes? It gets confusing.
One thing I have NEVER been called is a tree hugger. Unless lugging a rifle up a decrepit ladder to get into my deer stand dressed in camo counts. I’ve been called lots of other things though.
A person can be sensitive to the needs of rural residents and desire to keep a rural lifestyle and not be anti-growth. I have no idea what you are talking about when you say we’re shooting down all sorts of proposals. No one said anything about that. You need to remove the chip off your shoulder, dear. No one is going to take your job away from you. No one called you a Latino worker (shame on you) no one is out to get you.
I do hope Loudoun County does save some open space that is not filled with soccer fields. And if Mel gets out of horses, I hope she finds a fantastic condo close to the Metro. Nothing wrong with high density, or multi-family housing, brownfield development, or regentrification of blighted areas. I’ve lived in the city and absolutely loved it.
However, those needs must be balanced against the views of people who do not wish to live in such an environment. There are entire communities of people who get along just fine without a high speed connection and a Starbucks on every corner. That lifestyle is just as valuable and precious as an urban one.
If you enjoy foxhunting and the countryside, you must realize that the people who make that possible for you are the very people you are badmouthing on this BB. We’re the landowners. We’re the ones that allow hunts to build coops across our pastures. We’re the ones who maintain those lovely farm structures you see as you drive down the road. We’re the ones who take care of the land and preserve it so that hunts have quarry they can chase.
So my dear, you may want to stop pissing us off.
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Thanks for the info.
I agree in that it does appear to be too little , too late, but better than the current path we are on.
Foxhunting is doomed, one way or the other. There will be no hunting on 10 and 20 acre parcels. All you can hope for is a slowdown in the paving over of the land . You won’t find much farming on 10 and 20 acres also.
Does VA have a similar ag preservation program as in PA? Once you put it into ag preservation there is no pulling it out.
