| For 20 years I have been intimately involved in opposing government’s determination to control private property in Washington State. Bolstered by powerful environmental extremists, emboldened by each successful land grab, unelected bureaucrats — unfettered by our elected officials — are now regulating every square foot of private property in Kitsap County and throughout our state. In December 2005, Kitsap County adopted the Critical Areas Ordinance — one of the most onerous land use regulations in the country.
Government’s ticket to the control of your property is the application of a permit. When the private property owner applies for a building permit or undertakes any activity that requires a permit, they have opened the door to the “regulators.”
And what “hammers” does government use to control your use of your property?
- The Critical Areas Ordinance
- The Comprehensive Plan
- Countywide Planning Policies
- Site Development Activity Permit (5,000 sq.ft. impervious surface rule)
- Watershed Planning (yes, YOU live in a watershed)
And there’s more in the works. Much more…
The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is now in the process of developing its Vision 2020+20. It’s working to regionalize land use planning. The PSRC along with the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council (KRCC) are accruing more power than all of your local elected officials put together. “They just make policy,” you say? The bottom line is the policies developed by these regional governments end up in counties’ and cities’ land use regulations.
Simply put, they want people out of the rural areas and stacked into the cities. And, as we speak, they are developing the policies that transform into regulations that do just that.
“Shared Strategy for Puget Sound” started out in 1999 touting itself as a “collaborative initiative to restore and protect salmon runs across Puget Sound.” Its mantra was building “a cost effective salmon recovery plan endorsed by people living and working in the region…” After six years, millions of dollars and tons of paper, they finally endorsed and promoted the Critical Areas Ordinances of local jurisdictions as a solution to the problem.
The “Shared Strategy” plan (4,000 pages) has now been turned over to the Federal Government for adoption and enforcement — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
In September 2005, the federal government designated all of Kitsap County marine nearshore as critical habitat. Shoreline property owners brace yourself! I remember well the collusion between NMFS and Kitsap County in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and this leaves me enraged.
So now the State needs its own plan for Salmon in Puget Sound. Enter the Governor with her recently appointed “Puget Sound Partnership.” More taxpayer-funded studies, more meetings, more paper, more regulations, more control, and more taxes to pay for it all.
I have never seen anyone participate as a member of any of these groups effectively representing the constitutional rights of the small landowner like you and I. If there is someone sitting there to represent our interest, they are either overwhelmed by the bureaucrat/environmental faction, or they were appointed because they were irresolute.
The assault on private property rights will never be over unless we stop it here and now.
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Be Informed!
If passed, I-933, which is being sponsored by the Washington Farm Bureau, will impact land use, property rights, land use legislation, permitting, environmental regulations and rule-making in our state in a monumental way.
The Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal urges our readers to become informed on this important issue before it comes to a vote of the people in November. We present these two opposing views on I-933 as a way to educate our readers, and we strongly encourage you to get a copy of the initiative and read it in its entirety before making a decision.
Readers can find links to the Initiative text at:
www.propertyfairness.com
www.westsoundconservation.org |
If not us, who? If not now, when? What has happened to us? Haven’t we been pushed around enough? Don’t we have the will and passion to defend what our founding fathers granted us in our Constitutions?
Bureaucrats and environmentalist are very afraid that I-933 will pass. Why? Because your home and your land will no longer be their plaything. They’re trying to scare you into voting “No.” According to the Community Protection Coalition www.protectcommunities.org, if I-933 passes we will no longer have safe streets, but will have flooding, landslides and contaminated drinking water.
Keeping you in a state of fear is how they work. They’re more likely concerned that their bureaucratic environmental careers and retirement plans are in jeopardy if I-933 passes. Your tax dollars fund untold millions to the very groups who want complete control of your property.
Bureaucrats and environmentalist refuse to acknowledge that you have any rights. I have watched them for many years. Their appetite to control private land is insatiable.
They will affix maps to the wall, and draw lines or make colors on land that they think should be preserved from “human disturbance” for whatever reason. They don’t know whose land it is — and they don’t care. These people are thieves. They are stealing your land!
And you are left to pay the ever-increasing taxes on land you cannot use. They don’t believe you have any right to use your land without their regulatory oversight and prescriptions.
Vote “Yes” on I-933, The Property Fairness Initiative. Don’t let the thieves tell you what it means. Read it for yourself at www.propertyfairness.com. Initiative 933 was written to protect property owners. When I-933 passes, the environmentalist and bureaucrats will have to sit down at the table with you.
It’s about time you had some say-so in the matters of your own personal private property, don’t you think?
(Editor’s Note: Vivian Henderson is the Executive Director of the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners). | 
