Some developers are swine.

[paulsharvey]

I haven't read the whole post, but are hog farms or chicken houses allowed on your property? Might be a way to get the builder to move some of the houses, if you build your pens on your property line. Especially if you invest in a fan system to keep the critters cool, and it happens to blow the wrong way?
I am not against developments but I don't want them shoved down my throat! We had a 20 home development built up against my property in Switzerland Florida and it didn't bother me a bit.
David from jax

Yeah, but I wouldn't want Rivertown dropped next to me either...

 

[paulsharvey]

My area; pretty much in the 1970s, they laid a piece of graph paper on the western side of the county, and divided 10,000s of acres into 0.08-0.25 acre lots. 90% are still vacant; but there have been recently some guys buying up a couple dozen, and putting some smaller, nicer, homes on double lots (to get required separation between well and septic).

 

[4570Man]

There is no housing shortage in this county. A quick search on Zillow showed over 700 houses for sale in this county, spanning every price range, so that an invalid argument.
One can only criticize the NIMBY argument until it's coming to your front yard.

How many of those homes are currently occupied? If someone sells their house and buys a different one that doesn’t equal not a housing shortage. The population of the country is 3 times what it was in the 40s when most of these farms were started. Most people hate high rise buildings even more. Where do you propose the 3 times bigger population builds?

 

[paulsharvey]

700 homes currently on the market isn't really a huge ammount. You figure a person moves every 5-7 years; lets say they are on the market 45 days. Dont know your county, but lets say pop of 50,000; we need 7000 homes per year; or about 864 homes on the market at any point just to service the 50,000 people.

Then, we need to assume about 10-25% of those 700 arent "really" for sale; they threw a number on it, and if someone offered that, they would sell, but its way above realistic. Probably another 10-25% are Knock down or Major rehabs and not move in ready.

 

[paulsharvey]

"Forgot to mention, I've lived here for 51 years. When I moved here, there were only about 20 homes within a mile of me. Now there are over 700, and almost no farm land is left."

So, with this statement, it makes absolute sense for the commission to rezone it. "700 homes, and almost no farm land left", sounds to me like the area Should be rezoning to atleast R1 or R2 zoning; likely not R4. Maybe RR, or A2 is still appropriate? So, definition changes for area to area, but R2 is typically 0.25 acre lots, 1 home per lot; R1 is generally 1.25 acre lots. R4 allows small lots with multiple units per lot (town homes/duplexes/ect).

 

[4570Man]

It's not "woke", it's greed. I just moved from one extremely conservative town to another and both are encouraging or allowing this kind of unchecked development.

If someone builds high rise buildings you and pretty much anyone else hates it. If someone builds single story buildings close together you and pretty much everyone else hates it. If someone divides a “family farm” and just builds like 5 houses you still hate it not to mention we need to doze over another 24 farms to make up for the lack of density the first 2 options had. The earth is the same size yet the population is more. Can you help me out with ideas on where people are supposed to live?

 

[paulsharvey]

So, you have 700 homes in a 1 mile radius; so a land area of 3.14 sq miles or 2009.6 acres; averaging 2.87 acres per home. So, yeah, 72 homes on 62 acres does change it every so slightly, but not that much. Your area will now have an average of 2.603 acres per home. Or this community/subdivision will reduce the average by 0.267 acres per home; while bringing in $1.5M in instant revenue to the county, and an additonal $432,000 per year in tax. As an outsider, I know what direction I would vote on the zoning board...


Edit: but back to the main point; if im on the board, and given the facts as you list, and you just stomp you feet and make demands, your another nut, development approved. Done.

However, you come in, again with the facts as you described, and ask for a 30 ft buffer instead of a 20 ft standard buffer, interior to the community bus stop, and a 360 ft right turn lane into the community to prevent vehicle stacking in the PM peak; i likely would demand some or most of those from the developer before approving.

 

[kenmbz]

But the news told us the population is going down

 

[dodge man]

I guess a factory, wind farm or solar farm would be a better use?

I’ve seen posts where someone wants to do something on their land, say put up a building, build a bridge, put in a large culvert etc. Someone brings up the point you might have to get government approval for that. Then others post you should be able to do what you want on your own property. I guess not in this case.

You say all those lawns that people would fertilize dumping chemicals on. The last I saw farmers dump their fair share of fertilizers and chemicals on farm ground. Endangered species? Really?

The truth is you just don’t want it there for various reasons. I’m not blaming you, I wouldn’t want it either. Lots of luck fighting it.

 

[paulsharvey]

Fight it, or not; IMO, you're fighting a losing battle, so give ground, and retreat with your forces intact, and live to fight another day.

 

[bdhsfz6]

A developer I knew summed it up when he said "Everyone wants to be the last one in".

 

[paulsharvey]

BTW, our OP lists lot size as 3 acres; but hes complaining about subdividing, and small lots broken from larger parcels. How exactly was your 3 acre parcel created? It most likely started as an 80 acre piece?

 

[riptides]

Phrases that influenced what you see below - Lack of Transparency, Special Interests, Developers Rights, By Right Development, Zoning Changes.....different BoS directions.....20 year Master Plans, Rural Crescent...

This is what happened in 10 years just a few miles north of me. Another farm just was sold off to a developer too. We estimate another 1000 homes coming to the area. We think an additional 34 data centers are on the books too...

The area once had about a 100 Dairy Farms in the 1960's. Today there are none.

 

[dodge man]

I worked as a land surveyor with a civil engineering firm. Of all the projects I worked on, I can only think of one where people fought it and won. A Walmart. I’m not sure the neighborhood won or Walmart just decided the market wasn’t there.

 

[deezler]

This is what happened in 10 years just a few miles north of me. Another farm just was sold off to a developer too. We estimate another 1000 homes coming to the area. We think an additional 34 data centers are on the books too...

Thats nuts. Data centers in VA are already over 25% of your states electrical consumption, probably heading towards 50%. Are you seeing an impact on your monthly energy bills from this increased demand?

 

[riptides]

Thats nuts. Data centers in VA are already over 25% of your states electrical consumption, probably heading towards 50%. Are you seeing an impact on your monthly energy bills from this increased demand?

Energy bills....oh h*** yeah.

Some say our bills will double in the next five years too.

And the infrastructure build out for that hot mess directly impacts my county. As well as others of course.

 

[LHF2019]

That's the problem. The family that owned the farm put covenants or restrictions on the property prohibiting it being developed. After it was passed to the daughter, she hired a lawyer and had the restrictions removed. So here we are.

It’s too bad previous owners didn’t go through the right channels to make sure land stayed as they requested. What’s the point in trying to protect something if it can just be changed anyway. And shame on the daughter not respecting the wishes. Obviously she kept a straight face all the while waiting on the inevitable to cash out. This kind of stuff pisses me off.

 

[Tomtint]

Got notice last week that a developer has applied to build a subdivision across the street from me. Plan shows 72 houses on 64 acres with four retention ponds. NW corner borders a small creek. Neighbors are up in arms, I guess the FB thread (or whatever they are called, I don't do FB) was nearly a riot a friend said.
Here's what REALLY pisses me off. A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of the owners of the farm that I knew they were getting on and wouldn't be able to keep the farm up much longer, and she assured me that they had put covenants on the property that prohibited the property being developed because she knew it would be terrible for the neighborhood. Well, after they passed and the property went to their daughter, a developer friend of hers offered to buy the land and he would pay the legal bills to get the covenants removed. So that was accomplished and now we're looking at a few years of construction, noise, a lot more traffic, 72 septic systems, 72 more wells (a couple of people in the area have already had to put in deeper wells), more pollution from 72 lawns getting several doses of insecticides, herbicides and fertilizer every year.
I will have the back yards of four houses directly across from my property, a total of 16 will either face the road or face the other way. 10 will have driveways directly onto the county road in addition to the main entrance.
So tomorrow at 9:30AM there is going to be a huge turnout at the Planning Commission meeting for the approval or denial of the plan. Hope it doesn't get ugly, as some have on occasion.
The real problem I see, is that the members of the commission have virtually rubber stamped a bunch of projects this developer has submitted, even when there was overwhelming opposition against them. Part of the problem is that they are appointed, not elected, and really have no stake in the game, as it's nearly impossible to get them removed, past experience shows.
There's some talk of hiring a lawyer and I told them I would definitely support that if it became necessary.
Slimy friggin' developers...

Forgot to mention, I've lived here for 51 years. When I moved here, there were only about 20 homes within a mile of me. Now there are over 700, and almost no farm land is left.

This is the typical response from a NIMBY ..”Not in my back yard” .. rest assured your home was once not welcome by your neighbors ..51 years ago.. but somehow everyone managed. .. The difference between a developer and a conservationist …is that the conservationists built his house last year.
If someone wants to stop development, it’s pretty simple..buy the property and sit on it yourself..pay the taxes and upkeep and it’s yours to do as you please.
Developers no matter how big or small always run into NIMBYs.. all the time..it’s part of the job.
They are accustomed to town meeting pushback, neighbor complaints, FB tantrums, news paper bashing, name calling.. the list is long and basically irrelevant.
If a developer is heavily invested and gets too much pushback from the town permitting process…They have every right to bypass that all together and just do affordable housing in huge numbers.. probably 10-15x more density than what is being proposed now…And the town..and neighbor are powerless to do anything about it.
They have every best course of action is to meet privately with the opposition group, gat a consensus of your thoughts and desires, ..Nominate a spokesperson for your group to speak with the developer and town officials on a way to move forward with the plans that will not slow down the development. This may be appealing to the builder if is streamlines the permit process and saves legal and other soft costs.
Request buffers, request down llighting, request landscaping at entrances etc. all of this is easily doable early on. ..

 

[kenmbz]

In our old town the Mayor had a plan, they rezoned commercial to build a few houses.
Sold it as younger and older couples.
When it got approved, we then found out it was 800 town houses.
We fought it, and while we fought it another development went up with 200 townhouses that never made a single planning meeting.
When we tried to stop the 800 town houses, the developer sued the town and had documents for a preliminary ok, even though it was for only single family housing, he used that to say it's why he bought the property.
The lawsuit had plenty of lawyers, on the developers side. The 800 town houses are still being built to this day.
They also snuck in some more townhouses behind another development while the court case was happening.

So a town of 16,000 went up 3200 + people. They had to expand 2 elementary schools, build another middle school, hire more firefighters and police.

Whoever could move, did so. My taxes are now 1/2 of what they were in my old town.
And they just started building and whole development of 200 townhouses and some single family homes.

We met quite a few people who moved to our area, only to see the next town over start building townhouses, all over $1million to start. The town next door in the other direction built thousands of town houses and apartments.

Our town is limited to 5 acre lots, it's unusual to see a new house here , I think we had 2 in the last 8 years on new property. Our neighbors even went and bought the 2 empty fields slated to get houses to make sure we didn't have buildings in our backyards.

Now one of the developers here is running for Mayor. I have met him a few times and am scared as having a person who is on both sides of the line make decisions that could give him more $ is not good. Unfortunately, our voting is separate (township) from the town. So I have no say in what might impact us.

So local town meetings, even with people showing up in droves, does not sway the decisions very much. Money and lawyers drives this.

The Mayor in our old town bought a huge retirement mansion down south on a civil service job and then Mayor pay. One of the council members went to buy a huge building to build out a coffee shop, and it got so over the top he finally backed out of the deal. He worked at Home Depot and not as a manager.

 

[4570Man]

It’s too bad previous owners didn’t go through the right channels to make sure land stayed as they requested. What’s the point in trying to protect something if it can just be changed anyway. And shame on the daughter not respecting the wishes. Obviously she kept a straight face all the while waiting on the inevitable to cash out. This kind of stuff pisses me off.

Maybe donate it to a state park if you really care. Otherwise quite trying to tell the next owners what to do with their property. If your daughter isn’t going to farm why would you want her burdened with property taxes insurance and maintenance for property that’s effectively worthless? Possibly hundreds of people have owned your land before you have. Did you consult their wishes before you built on it?