#61 This Land is My Land

South Fork Rivanna Reservoir
Credit: Hank Helman

October 4, 2007

Last night, after the last credits rolled on Ken Burns’ documentary,” The War,” the screen was filled with a series of film clips, along with the words, “this is yours.” It started with views of mountains, then the north rim of the Grand Canyon, then watersheds, then farm fields, and was spliced together with others showing people living, laughing, learning, playing … the background music was soothing and welcome after the raw footage and compelling stories of war. This end note, which was really an advertisement for PBS, was an invitation to think of what America or the United States really means to each of us … and what are we are willing to do protect that which we hold dear.

With these thoughts still fresh in my mind, I tried to put myself in the shoes of those in Albemarle County whose “property rights,” some feel, are being assailed by the latest round of amendments being proposed to the zoning, subdivision, and water protection ordinances of the County code. Each of the proposed amendments restricts in some way the right of a landowner to build; to subdivide; to disturb the land, remove trees, or gain access to those portions of his or her property that have slopes greater than 25%.

These hot-button items are going before the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, in a public hearing being held on Wednesday evening October 10. The amendments that are up for comment are described at the County’s Community Development web-site and are called critical slopes, safe and convenient public access, family subdivisions. Also, changes to the water protection ordinance will minimizing any land disturbing activities within 100 feet of streams in the County’s designated rural areas as well as the already protected watersheds that feed our drinking water supplies.

Feelings are running high about these restrictions –on either side you might sit on. The County, charged with protecting our natural resources, has proposed these amendments in order to limit the amount of sediment and pollution that enters our waterways and to preserve the vegetated buffers on our streams. The ecological benefits that result from keeping intact these riparian zones are well documented – cooler water, better habitat in and near the stream, better absorption of stormwater and runoff and the nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment they carry. The need to do so in the Rivanna watershed has never been greater with some 15 stream segments of the Rivanna now listed as impaired by Virginia DEQ.

Some landowners, especially those whose wealth is tied to the land, whether by inheritance or by speculation or investment, predictably do not welcome these restrictions. Others, driven by a sense of responsibility to protect the integrity of landscapes, while they may recognize an individual’s property rights, even their own, they are more accepting of the restrictions – even welcoming of them because they will slow the pace of development and help ensure some measure of protection for our waterways and land.

Like most zoning ordinances, these proposals are subject to exception either through grandfathered rights or by appealing – but they are an example of the County’s attempt to keep pace with other cities and counties in the Commonwealth that have upgraded their standards in accordance with the 2003 amendments to Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. The Act outlines how property owners in the tidewater regions of Virginia are restricted for the common good of protecting and restoring water quality in the Bay. In 1991, Albemarle became the first non-Tidewater county to voluntarily adopt this guidance. Our existing restrictions protect over 1000 stream miles and 25,000 acres of land in the County. The proposed restrictions will increase protections by over a third again. This latest amendment is simply an update.

But it is not simple. Even a cursory review of the ordinance itself reveals the complexities of attempting to be fair, to reduce the impact on landowners while affording the strongest measure of protection of the streams in question and thus our collective water supply, our rural areas, our landscapes. While our population continues to grow, our human needs for space and for wild places and for unobstructed views remain … and these are our collective needs that transcend boundaries, just as much as an aquatic system needs a minimum of protection to survive, let alone thrive.

So the caption repeated on the television screen bears thinking about. This is ours. Would that we could find a way to help everyone who owns lands with the incentives, the tools, and the inspiration to treat that land for the collective good.