We’ve spent countless hours over the past few months working out all the details of the conservation easement.  We’ll be restricting forever anyone building above a certain elevation to protect the scenic knobs that can be seen for miles around, restricting cutting of the big old trees to the environmental practices we’ve already established, rolling in the 3 acre parcel with the homeplace that we later bought, and limiting further division of the property to one division in perpetuity.

That is, if Floyd County lets us.  These kinds of easements, while not extensive in Floyd, have been routine.  Until now.  After viewing our easment and a couple others in what had previously been a routine review, the Planning Commission had the County attorney notify the Virginia Outdoors Foundation that henceforth they will be reviewing all proposed easements to ensure that they adhere to their comprehensive plan.

Seems they now view our County  comprehensive plan as only allowing for easements to preserve agricultural land, and they didn’t view our easement as doing so!  Sounds to me like they’ve  just decided they don’t like conservation easements any more.  I’ve seen doctors, lawyers, and the like who depend on a *population* for their business to be against easements, but the first time I’ve seen a public body.  Studies have shown that a farm uses far less than it pays in taxes in public services, and a subdivision much more.  And Floyd is the fastest growing county in SW VA because of it’s unique beauty and “sense of place”.  We’re “defecating in our own nest” if we allow unbridled subdivision to continue.

All is not lost – it appears the Planning Commission will reconsider our easement at their next meeting, and I feel confident that the commission will understand that our easement is very much agriculturally oriented.  But I fear that they are too narrowly interpreting the comprehensive plan and will impede other, less agriculturally-oriented easements.  And to be fair, serving on the Planning Commission is a totally thankless job, and the issues *are* complex.  Seeing the problems, good at thankless jobs, and a sucker for “potential” I might just ask if there is an open position on the Commission.

Hah!  As if they would want somebody like me stirring up trouble…