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That's the mentality that has made "right to farm" programs necessary.

The farm was there long before the interlopers built their houses. It's not selfish or stubborn for a farmer to continue to farm, even if other people have recently decided that the land would be better used for McMansions.

It's one thing if we're discussing the expansion of farming into suburban areas but this is suburban sprawl into rural land.

First come, first served and all of that.

I disagree. I submit that it is both stubborn and selfish to insist that because the past was convenient for you, the future must also be so in the same way. This is the sort of mindset that serves to manufacture housing crises.

That's a ridiculous and disrespectful position.

The family of the farmer that I described elsewhere in the thread had literally farmed their 500 acre land for nearly 400 years. Their original land grant from a Dutch Patroon called for annual taxes of 2 pigs and 5 bushels of wheat. They did nothing wrong. They have title to the land.

Why is that family's property rights inferior to those of folks building sprawl homes?

> Why is that family's property rights inferior to those of folks building sprawl homes?

They aren't. They also aren't inherently superior and deserving of special privilege by virtue of being older. Otherwise we'd kick off the farmers, the natives who were there before, and every single form of life until the area degenerated to nothing but blue-green algae.

Also, the idea that a position is wrong because it offends or fails to respect someone else's beliefs in arbitrarily selected (but unspecified) ways is one that is offensive and disrespectful.

What "special privilege" are you referring to in the example given? The special privilege to not have the property that they own sold out from under them against their wishes?

Or the "special privilege" of using their land for the purpose for which it was acquired and had been used ever since?

The special privilege of extra legal protection, such as a "right to farm".

This is probably hopeless but all towns/cities dictate how properties in given areas can be used (i.e. zoning). They may change those rules but, for good reason, those rules are rarely retroactive. "Too bad about your house on one acre. We have five acre minimum zoning now. You'll have to tear it down--and good luck selling that property."

So there are restrictions on pretty much any use of property in a given town or state. The ability to build a house, run a farm, or build an asphalt plant is allowed or not allowed by the zoning. It's not about having a special "right to farm" any more or less than it's about having a special "right to build a house."

EDIT: Just add that the "right to farm" bylaws are mostly a reminder, especially to newcomers, that people have, um, a right to farm based on existing zoning. So don't move into our country town and then start a petition to close down the dairy farm down the street because it gets a bit smelly now and then during the summer.

When you live a place, you can and should have a right to attempt to change it. This is a basic tenet of American government (taxation, representation, etc.). Just because a place has "always" been a given way does not and should not mean it can never be different.

That, I suppose, is a long way of saying that zoning can change. And sometimes other regulations change in ways that are inconvenient for some, especially when those people have failed to make a compelling case for why things should not change. We call this "democracy".

Oh, it certainly can change. When the rightful owner of a property decides that it's time.

You have no legitimate right to demand that anyone do anything with their property based on your preference.

Only to the extent that details like democracy, zoning, and free speech permit.

Which is to say you can demand all you like, but until enough people agree with you the right way it doesn't matter.

It's intellectually dishonest to cling to the principles of democracy on the municipal level but then complain about them at the state level.

"Right to farm" rules are an example of democracy in action.

Cities don't need to expand outward. They can expand upward. Farms can't.

With the rise of vertical farming, both cities and farms can expand upwards.

One is economically feasible on a large scale in 2015 and the other isn't... care to guess which one?

Unless you are growing MJ or cocaine, the cost of farming in the middle of a city in a vertical farm is prohibitive. That area can be better used for residences and offices.

Your example is true in as much is it discredits your overall stance. A, if not the, major cause of housing crises (meaning keeping people affordably sheltered, not as in housing bubbles) is zoning law.

At its best, it keeps industrial sites from being built within certain residential areas. At its meanest, it's used to create economically and racially segregated communities, oust families from their homes, and freeze cities in time. Upholding its use for any of the latter could generally be assumed to be the result of particularly stubborn and selfish mindsets towards one's own convenience.

Also troubling about current US zoning practices are its weird exclusive use-per-zone rules, the threat to one's right to unencumbered use of their land, arbitrary development cost increases within cities (contributing to sprawl), and rent increases from zoning exploitation to artificially raise a community's median property values, and, as a side effect, driving up the rent in surrounding areas.

I consider these and any act which would potentially lead to the eviction of someone from their home to be much larger threats to the availability of equitable and affordable housing than people with the wealth to be mobile being bothered by not having the right to control what others do on and with their own property.

I agree. We should turn the farms over to the native americans.

How dare that farm that was there prior to all the sprawl continue to exist. Why can't that farm owner consider the property values of his beleaguered new neighbors who only had full knowledge of the existence of a nearby farm when they purchased their property.

It astonishes me how obstinately self-centered people can be.

>because the city had no means of forcing the sale of the land.

I'd find it pretty horrible if the city did have the means to force the sale of the land so that developers could build more houses. Gentrification of any sort has plusses and minuses but I'm generally pretty opposed to the government imposing it by forcing people to move out and sell their property.

it dragged down land values and contributed little tax income to the city compared to the ~40 or so houses that are now replacing it.

While those 40 homes lead to greater tax revenue, the amount of expense they demand is even greater.

Anywhere I've lived, even sky-high property tax NJ, the property tax coming from a single home is rather less than the town is paying to educate a single child. So unless the average child density in that development is much less than 1 (say, 0.75 children per house), despite the town collecting more taxes, they'll be spending much more on schools, and it'll be a net loss. And that's before we consider the cost of other services at all...

> In my view ... shouldn't be encouraged if it has a negative impact on surrounding homeowners

So... You support the idea that we will eventually get rid of all farms in favour of suburbia? How will this not end up negatively affecting the world around us?

No no, just move all the farms to California!

> As the name implies, before Wheat Ridge was a suburb of Denver

> Despite the nostalgia, everyone pretty much hated the farm because it dragged down land values and contributed little tax income to the city compared to the ~40 or so houses that are now replacing it.

Only 40 houses? Do you realize how much "everyone pretty much hate"s suburbanite breeders like you?

Chill with the name calling.

And yet "there was something romantic about having the one of the last farms in Wheat Ridge right next to my neighborhood"??

Hypocrite.