NIMBY Control -GA Style

[Anonymous]

Saw an interesting article today in the real estate section of our Sunday paper.

Battle of Farmer vs. Suburbanites Leads to a Big Stink
By ANNE BERRYMAN

Published: June 20, 2004


ATKINSVILLE, Ga.

THE struggle between suburbanites who want to retain their bucolic views and developers who want to put houses on farmland is playing out here in a rather surprising, and smelly, way.

Last month, Bob Cain, a developer, was denied permission to rezone his 34 acres of agricultural land and build 43 town houses, 51 detached single-family homes and two commercial office buildings, each about 3,500 square feet. Just days after the Oconee County Board of Commissioners rejected the request, a strong odor began wafting from tons of poultry manure freshly dumped on Mr. Cain's property.

His grassy, rolling land fronting a winding two-lane road is next to Northwood Woods, a subdivision of 225 houses. Residents there had strongly opposed the development, fearing heavier traffic, decreased home values and increased burdens on the schools.

It apparently never occurred to them to fear manure.

"It took your breath," said Pam Bridges, 39, who lives with her husband, Ben, 38, and their son, Broc, 11, in a two-story house next to Mr. Cain's property. It lingered for days, growing stronger and forcing members of a nearby church to retreat indoors for a cookout and tent revival. Neighbors normally seen walking, biking and jogging past the subdivision's houses, set on lushly landscaped one-acre lots, mostly stayed indoors.

Then came the flies "layering everything in black," said Mrs. Bridges, whose legs weeks later still reveal the purple splotches of fly bites. The flies covered the porch swing. They cloaked her son's bike and football. Their dog begged to come inside.

But the stench of the moment wasn't their only concern. At about the same time, a bright blue, quarter-page ad appeared in The Oconee Enterprise saying: "Attention! Looking for qualified HOG FARMER to lease 34 ACRES on Hog Mountain Road FOR $1 PER ACRE . . . Contact Bob Cain."

Conflicts among farmers, developers and suburbanites play out frequently across the country. According to the American Farmland Trust, a conservation group, about 1.2 million acres of farmland are disappearing each year and being replaced by metropolitan sprawl. The struggles are particularly acute in fast-growing states like Georgia, and in counties like Oconee, which is 70 miles east of Atlanta. Each year, about 400 houses are built in the county, and farmland values jump 25 percent.

The dispute here is hardly over. Mrs. Bridges and others claimed the manure and the ad were placed to spite opponents to the rezoning, but Mr. Cain told The Oconee Enterprise, "I'm fertilizing because I intend to cut hay here." Meanwhile, he has filed a lawsuit, calling the existing zoning "arbitrary and capricious" and requesting that commissioners be ordered to reconsider his application. He declined to comment on his plans, and referred calls to his lawyer, G. Douglas Dillard of Atlanta, who said his client has a right to use his land as zoned.

"All the evidence supports the rezoning," Mr. Dillard said. Mr. Cain's situation is common, he said, because there is no consensus on how to deal with development. "We talk about sprawl and the loss of farmland and open space, yet at the same time we want acre-size lots," he said.

In a response filed last week, the county denied the allegations in Mr. Cain's lawsuit.

The stink has dissipated, but it mobilized Northwest Woods to reorganize its neighborhood association and led to the creation of another, larger alliance of residents intent on supporting controlled growth.

Some people worry that the incident of the poultry manure spread could incite conflict between farmers and suburban residents. Russ Page, 59, who owns a cattle-breeding business, said he fears that farmers will be hampered in their work to pacify the new residents. "Don't puni***he farmers," he said at a county commission hearing.

Federal, state and local officials have struggled with ways to preserve farmland in Georgia. Just five miles south of the Cain property, Allen Powers and Ann Breedlove Powers's farm recently became one of eight in Georgia preserved in a conservation easement partly financed by the Department of Agriculture's Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program. Georgia, with the nation's third-largest loss of farmland, has no preservation program of its own.

Under the preservation plan, the Powers family sold off development rights for about $470,000 and kept the right to work the 63-acre farm, which has been in their family for four generations.

Meanwhile, G. Melvin Davis, chairman of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, said he could not be specific about the reasons for rejecting Mr. Cain's rezoning request because it is in litigation, although he did say the commission "didn't feel like it was in the best interest of the public."

But he does not see rezoning requests, nor controversies, diminishing. "Who likes change?" he asked. "A wet baby. That's the only person who likes change."

[88gta350]

Gee, where I'm originally from there are hundreds of farms, and almost everyone has a "manure pit" that collects the cow manure that is pumped out of the barn. It stays in this pit and composts until it is spread on the fields by the farmer.

Then there are the chicken farms. They, of course, produce the poultry manure that so upset these poor people. Everytime I go back there, I alwyas think of the smell of the valley as "fresh country air". I guess you just have to be used to it. If it were me, I'd consider myself fortunate that I had a farm as a neighbor instead of a factory, or something worse.

[Allen Jenkins]

Whilst trimming trees of the property owners rights-of-way, for Georgia Power Company, for Burford's Tree Surgeons, we occasionally ran across a manure enriched field, or milking barn, and someone would make a comment on the bouque. My forman Dwight Akins, of Lookout Mt, Alabama, told me "Allen, that's the smell of success"! Enjoy Your Hobby! ACJ.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It definitely reminds me of my college days at Northern Illinois Univ. The west edge of campus abutted against a cornfield and the smell in the spring was pretty much as described. The rugby club's playing field was right at the property line and practices in the spring definitely involved that smell, especially when we had a strong west wind.

[mudchicken]

Hope Mr. Cain does not have a D-9 bulldozer like the guy in Granby, CO a month ago.

[Anonymous]

To quote a native of Oconee County Georgia "The Trouble of it is: that one mans prosperity is somehow another mans poverty and what is progress for many is often another decent into chaos," thank you Brother John

[rrnut282]

I love it. Go Mr. Cain. Make sure you leave a pasture for the 'honey-dew wagon' to spread its contents upon.

On a worse note, several years ago here in Indiana some dumbA who just built a house sued the neighboring hog farm because of the smell. And he WON! Here in a farming state! A two generation farm had to shut down over a two-year old house. NOW THAT STINKS.

[garr]

I'm from Georgia and am familiar with the hodge-podge zoning in nearly all its 159 counties. The NIMBY attitude of the Northwood Woods' residents is typical--I want my 1/2 acre lot but I don't want the undeveloped land next door to be developed. A lot of times this hyporcritical attitude is not justified, but in this case it may be. 51 detached single family homes, 43 townhouses, and 2 3,500sf office buildings plus parking lots on only 34 acres of land is VERY dense zoning. After allowing for roads, the lot size could not average 1/4 acre which is dense zoning for the metro Atlanta area much less the more rural Oconee County area. Maybe the 34 acre figure is wrong?

I do like Mr. Cain's wise use of the land. The Commission and Northwood residents want it to remain farm land, so let the man farm. If they don't like his totally legal farming practices, the homeowners association should offer to buy the land or maybe one of the residents could one-up Mr. Cain and rent the farm for $34.

This pales in comparison to what Norfolk Southern went through when it first showed interest in purchasing land in the Cobb County(Metro Atlanta) area of Georgia for a major intermodal terminal. The land was in an empty industrial/office park which had been marketed for years with not one building built. The adjacent highway is a divided 4 lane near I-20. A nearly perfect location. But NIMBY's and local goverments got involved. One ballpark complex, one golf course(yet to be built, but on the way), and untold other concessions got NS approval for a nice modern intermodal terminal. Kind of backwards from what is normally seen. Usually government gives concessions to get the business to locate in its area, but not in this case.

Jay

[88gta350]

In my area, often times when there is a dispute like this the municipality will offer to purchase the land out from under the developer and then turn it into a park or some other green area for the community. This way the farmer looking to get out still gets money and the community doesn't get the increased traffic, congestion, and all the other stuff these people were worried about.

Some municipalities are hesitant to do this though, because they are giving up the potential tax money they'd collect from such a development.

A mile down from my house they are constructing several (read that at least 12) 1,000,000 square foot wharehouses on what used to be some of the best farmland in the country. Back when they were still in the plannign phase, local residents and some of the farmers looking to sell wanted the zoning changed from light industrial to residential so that neighborhoods would be built instead of big, ugly wharehouse with all the truck traffic. The township refused to rezone even though a study they funded indicated the wharehouses would cause gridlock within a few years. The reason they gave? They get more tax money from the wharehouses then they would from a suburban development.