Wayne,
Thanks for your post about how you were able to save agricultural land in BC
through the Agricultural Land Reserve Act. You mentioned that if the public
demanded it and legislators convinced that it was needed, similar legislation
could be passed here. But here in the States, even passing legislation is
not enough. We also have our judicial system, which strongly values
individual and property rights. In the 1980's the City of Seattle adopted
legislation creating a Greenbelt Ordinance to try to preserve some portion of
existing greenbelts through legislation. Property owners and developers
sued, and the State Supreme Court overturned the guts of the ordinance as too
restrictive. (You can view the "City Lights" condos on Harbor Avenue along
Alki, built under the ordinance, to see just how "restrictive" the ordinance
was.) This is one reason why in Washington, we've passed bonds (such as the
1989 Open Space Bond Issue) to compensate owners for the development rights
of their land, or to purchase their land outright. But it's a very expensive
way to go.

This is pretty much off topic for this list, I suppose, unless saving habitat
can be considered on topic.

Didi Anstett, Seattle
mailto: didianstet at aol.com



< Jerry, I enjoyed your nostalgic account of life in the Kent Valley
<in the 1940s. However, you are wrong when you say "but you know, that
<had to be" (referring to the urbanization and paving of much of the
<valley).

< Here in British Columbia, we have a law called the "Agricultural
<Land Reserve Act", which was passed in the early 1970s. It has largely
<stopped in its tracks the urbanization of the Fraser Delta