LETTER: Proposed Rezoning Betrays Property Owners

January 12, 2015

DEAR EDITOR,

I am writing to add my voice publicly to those who have already spoken and written their objections to the way in which Northampton County’s new proposed rezoning is being handled. I was a participant in several of the citizen workshops held when the present zoning was being reviewed, and am appalled at the way this is being handled now.

I am an elected public servant, having served on the Eastville Town Council for over 20 years, but I write this as a private property owner and business owner. I sent an earlier version of this letter as an email to the Northampton County Board of Supervisors in late March 2014. I received no reply from any of them.

Everything about the way this matter is being handled makes me suspicious that it is being driven by interests that DO NOT have the interests of Northampton County citizens and taxpayers in mind.

I, as a resident, property owner, rental home owner, bed and breakfast owner, and taxpayer, feel betrayed. I understand a desire on local government’s part to do something, anything, to improve the economic situation, but this is not the answer.

Eastville, on a much smaller scale, of course, has gone through the same process of Comprehensive Plan review and updating of its zoning text and map, and it was a steep learning curve for us on the town council at the time. County staff was fantastic,  helping us in every way they could, including bringing in planning and zoning experts from as far away as Colorado. Zoning is complicated and doesn’t interest everyone. But whether you care or not, your community’s zoning does affect you and your property values. This proposed county rezoning is opening a Pandora’s Box.

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I am looking out my kitchen window as I write, looking at the agriculturally zoned farm that abuts my property, and the thought of what could be done on that property under the proposed new rezoning, without any notice to me, a neighbor, scares the daylights out of me. And makes me exceedingly angry as well.

One supposed complaint about Northampton’s present zoning that is trotted out by the Supervisors as a reason for drastic change is that the document and process are just too business-unfriendly, and minor Special Use Permits must be eliminated. My reaction to that? If the Supervisors consider application for a Special Use Permit too lengthy and time-consuming for the applicant, perhaps more staff at Planning and Zoning might ease the pressure? If a farm owner or hopeful new business owner finds several hundred dollars and several months’ processing time, not to mention having his neighbors notified of what he is planning, too onerous, then his capital reserve is woefully underfunded, and his business plan seriously unsound or suspicious. And so I have to ask myself: “Why does the Board of Supervisors want to eliminate my right to know what my neighbor plans that is currently not allowed by right in the County’s zoning? Why don’t they want the Planning Commission to hear comment from his neighbors?”

Eastville is surrounded by four failed subdivisions, done during the real estate bubble, that were hailed by the Supervisors at the time as desperately needed and just the thing to solve our economic woes (houses! business/office strips! condos!) during the last go-round over this complex and frustrating economic situation. This new proposed rezoning would add more than just additional subdivisions and building lots — it would, among other things, add obnoxious and environmentally detrimental uses to farmland, and I, without the notice that a Special Use Permit provides to adjacent property owners, would not have a chance to know what was coming next door, nor have a peep to say about it.

This is especially true for Northampton’s citizens who live in incorporated towns and whose properties often abut agricultural land outside their town limits. I received three packets concerning the proposed zoning changes as they pertained to my properties in the county, but no packet arrived concerning my home here in Eastville, and yet my Eastville property, the site of my Bed and Breakfast, is even more vulnerable than my county properties.

The first I would know of an ATV racetrack or large-scale chicken house or a waste-disposal site right next door would be when the bulldozers show up. What would something like that, practically in my backyard, do to my property values? What Bed and Breakfast guest would want to stay here?

I am left to hope that Pandora’s Box will prove to be empty, and that the philosophy of “if you zone it, they will come” will prove false yet again. What a sad hope.

ELEANOR GORDON
 Eastville

Letters to the Editor are welcome, and a diversity of opinions is encouraged. Send submissions to [email protected].

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