Old Virginia Joe
Bronze Member
Two years ago, the county inspector trespassed on my 86 acre home farm, past the posted signs, while I was away at work, to leave me a notice that I was in violation of the county zoning ordinance, for allowing a friend to spend the night in a camper on my property. There was never any phone call or appointment made to ask my side of the story beforehand. My friend lives out of town, and would spend the night in his camper on hunting trips when he hunted two back-to-back days. The county said they had a complaint that someone was "living" in the camper, so I explained what was going on, but they said "no dice." I was in violation if anyone ever spent even a single night camping on my land, including me or my three little sons, unless I had an approved campground permit from the county, for only $1,350.00! I said no thanks, I already pay enough in taxes, and I'm not interested in having the county tell me how to set up and operate my property to comply with their version of what a campground should look like. And, why should anyone have to go to a pay campground anyway, if he already owns his own piece of wilderness? How is this freedom possibly hurting my neighbor, or even the environment? What I think hacked them off was the fact that I have a health department approved septic system and well in the ground at this site, where I used to have my single-wide mobile home. I paid for and obtained county approval for rezoning this home site for a mobile home on my farm back in 1991, when I first bought the farm. When I built a new house, I got rid of the mobile home, and the old site was not being used anymore, so of course it was the perfect place to put the camper, hooked to the utilities. I have a unique situation here, and why shouldn't I be able to use my investment in infrastructure? It was not put there for the camper, but was formerly installed for the single-wide mobile home! When I asked for consideration, that I had in good faith already paid for a trailer site approval, again, they said no. By the way, the ordinance also prohibits tents as well!
So, being a good citizen, I ceased the camping, and decided "this stinks, but I'll do my civic duty and work with the county to expose this ridiculous new regulation, and get the ordinance changed." After all, the many people I told about this thought it was outrageous and had to be fixed. After 8 months of planning-commission and board of supervisors meetings, fighting against the personal will of the zoning administrator (supposed to be a public servant), while being handicapped by being limited to three minutes to speak (while she spoke as long as she felt like!), the board refused to change the law! I asked if they would now prohibit the Boy Scouts and church youth groups from camping on our local farms? She said she would not enforce the law on tent camping. I did not know county officials could legally pick and choose which parts of the law they would enforce, and which parts they would ignore!
They told the board that of all the 18 counties in SE Va. that they surveyed, ALL the other counties had the same law as we do. If you look into this in your own county and state, you will probably find that all these zoning officials have by now "cut and pasted" and emailed this kind of law verbage to all their friends around Amerika, and you have the same mess contaminating your county as I do here. Question is, are we going to settle for this anti-freedom tyranny, or are we going to be able to reverse it? I find this unacceptable. As an Army veteran, this is not what I served to protect. Any ideas how to get our freedom back? I am appalled at this, and need help. Thank you. (see the news story at: http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/1249/06/1249_1339437013.pdf
So, being a good citizen, I ceased the camping, and decided "this stinks, but I'll do my civic duty and work with the county to expose this ridiculous new regulation, and get the ordinance changed." After all, the many people I told about this thought it was outrageous and had to be fixed. After 8 months of planning-commission and board of supervisors meetings, fighting against the personal will of the zoning administrator (supposed to be a public servant), while being handicapped by being limited to three minutes to speak (while she spoke as long as she felt like!), the board refused to change the law! I asked if they would now prohibit the Boy Scouts and church youth groups from camping on our local farms? She said she would not enforce the law on tent camping. I did not know county officials could legally pick and choose which parts of the law they would enforce, and which parts they would ignore!
They told the board that of all the 18 counties in SE Va. that they surveyed, ALL the other counties had the same law as we do. If you look into this in your own county and state, you will probably find that all these zoning officials have by now "cut and pasted" and emailed this kind of law verbage to all their friends around Amerika, and you have the same mess contaminating your county as I do here. Question is, are we going to settle for this anti-freedom tyranny, or are we going to be able to reverse it? I find this unacceptable. As an Army veteran, this is not what I served to protect. Any ideas how to get our freedom back? I am appalled at this, and need help. Thank you. (see the news story at: http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/1249/06/1249_1339437013.pdf
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