As reported here, the Farm Bureau has filed the initiative that they have been working on, which would require governments to compensate landowners who suffer a financial loss through lowered property values, or are restricted in the use of their property through regulation.
"Our ... initiative would require government to understand the impact that its laws and regulations have on landowners, both financial and personal," said Steve Appel, a Whitman County wheat grower and state Farm Bureau president. "Who can argue with that?"
In Seattle and other urban areas, the initiative could force cities to pay for stricter environmental protections, such as rules preventing landowners from building a garage close to sensitive wetlands or developing landslide-prone slopes.
"We think it's wrong," said Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. "The real impact would be on the environmental side -- if you're increasing buffers along the shoreline, which we're doing, that probably would be something that people would seek damages or compensation for."
And the problem with that is, Tim? As I've posted before, here, here, here, and here, I think that property owners are very conscious of the environment, and what would and would not be good use of their own property, and do not need the government telling them what to do with their own property.
This initiative, if it does get on the ballot, is all about addressing the fairness to property owners issue. Enacting laws, ordinances and regulations, without regard to the people who it will have the most impact on, and without proper recompense, is not only not fair, but just plain wrong.
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