75-04-B2
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Land Planning
TranscriptHow do we preserve the beauty of nature and our Constitutional right to private ownership of land? I'll be right back. A majority of us are somewhere in an environmental middle between those who'd pave over everything in the name of progress and those who wouldn't let us build a house unless it looked like a bird's nest. People are ecology too, and most of us are looking for answers that will preserve nature to the greatest extent possible, consistent with the need to have places where we can work and live. The Federal government pushes nationwide land planning, which is the greatest threat in two hundred years to our traditional right to own property. Congress debates a bill which, if passed, would destroy the right of counties and towns to have local zoning ordinances and all of this is done in the name of environmentalism. But what happens to freedom? what happens to your right to purchase or homestead a piece of land and make it bear fruit, if an agency in Washington can tell you exactly what you can or can't do with your land, including telling you there's nothing you can do but pay the taxes and let it lay idle. California has a well-intentioned coastline protection law that's resulted in economic disruption and hardship to a great many citizens, some of whom just wanted to build a beach house for themselves. There's talk now of similar programs for the mountains the deserts and virtually every other area of our state. Those of us who are neither anti-ecology nor environmental extremists seek an answer. How do we protect our constitutional right to own a piece of this earth, at the same time we ensure open space and natural beauty for generations not yet born. Well is it over simplification to suggest we don't need restrictive laws on government land planning but simply the law of supply and demand operating in the free market? Let those who want to live at the beach or in the mountains or desert by buying sites in the open market from willing sellers. The vast majority of us through choice or necessity will continue to live in cities, towns and suburbs; however we want to know that when and if the desire strikes us, there are beaches, mountains and deserts where we can go for an hour, a day or an extended vacation. We don't want to feel that someday private ownership of these beauty spots and natural wonders will shut us out. Well our answer also lies in the open market. We the people can, collectively, through our government, do exactly what we can do as individuals. We can estimate what we need for our present and future use and then through government buy it. Now, right now, we the people through government own more than a third of all the land of the United States. In some of our more scenic states government ownership is as much as ninety percent of the total state. In California, government owns forty percent of the total coastline. Now much of this publicly owned land is already in the form of parks and vast areas or national forest land. If more is needed we should do collectively exactly what we do individually, go buy it. What we must not do is give to ourselves collectively in the name of government rights we don't possess. As individuals we can have all the open space and recreational land we need we don't have the right to tell someone who owns a beach lot that he can't build on it because we like the view as we drive by on the highway. If the view is that important to us, we should buy it. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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