William Jud
"Scenic Byway" is Property Rights Theft
By William Jud
Dec 19, 2007 - 12:38:12 AM

A recent Farmington, Missouri, KTJJ Radio news item announced a proposal to declare Highway 21 through Jefferson County, Missouri, as a "Scenic Byway."

"Scenic Byway" designation is not a benign honor, similar to Garden Of The Month, but is in fact a highly restrictive legal instrument for taking away private property rights and controlling how you will be allowed to live, even to the smallest details of daily life.

Before you voice your approval of Scenic Byway designation for Highway 21, or any other travel corridor, do extensive research concerning what is involved and which rights you will give away to be administered by a faceless and generally hostile bureaucracy.

It is pretty much pointless to give "Scenic Byway" designation to Highway 21 only in Jefferson County. Expect designation to be extended throughout the length of Highway 21 into the Counties of Washington, Iron, Reynolds, Carter and Ripley, including many rural connecting roads and local attractions. Land-grabs of this nature always seek to expand their territory.

The term "Scenic" means that the area is considered attractive by someone or some group that likes the land's appearance. But does their definition fit your definition of lovely land?

The proposal to preserve "Scenic" values is a backdoor attempt to freeze in time all that presently exists. "Scenic" designation offers a legal means for a group of Preservationist Radicals to stop all property development and most property maintenance in the designated area.

This may get pretty ridiculous and can be carried to extremes. You will not be allowed to do anything with your property that will change the presently existing scenery.

If your house is painted blue and has cedar shingles, after "Scenic" designation your house must ALWAYS be painted blue and must ALWAYS have cedar shingles. You will not be allowed to add a room to your house or construct an outbuilding such as a shed or garage. If you burn wood to heat your home you will not be allowed to switch to gas heat, and vice-versa. You may keep your existing electrical service, but are prohibited from running electric wires to any new areas on your property.

Cutting down a tree in your yard will be forbidden. If a tree dies and must be removed, only an APPROVED kind of tree may be planted in the dead tree's place, and only after submitting an application and appearing before the "Scenic Byways" committee to obtain the committee‘s approval, usually after paying a significant application fee. Forget about EVER harvesting timber on your land. Forget about cleaning up debris after a tornado or ice storm.

If you have a horse and a dozen cows, you must ALWAYS have a horse and a dozen cows. Not two horses and six cows. Not three cows and four sheep. Not pasture converted into an orchard or lawn, or given to your kids to build their homes. No change will be allowed so that the existing "Scenic" condition will be preserved.

With all those restrictions, land values drop nearly to zero. Who would want to buy land that cannot be used for normal activities? What bank would loan money to buy such severely encumbered land?

Economic development? Forget it! No new homes. No new shopping centers. No new buildings for someone wanting to start a business. No demolition and redevelopment of deteriorating buildings.

No repaving, straightening and widening of dangerous curvy and narrow sections of Highway 21. Everything must remain frozen in time, just as it was when the "Scenic Byway" designation went into effect. "Scenic Byways" is "The Natural Streams Act" for roads.
 
The word "Scenic" refers to things that can be seen. This includes the total land area that can be seen from the "Scenic Byway" road and from which the "Scenic Byway" road can be seen.
 
The area under strict control of the Scenic Byway committee extends from the edge of the pavement even to areas of visible high ground that may be ten miles or more away. That includes all visible land and property, no matter how distant from the road. This usually enormous chunk of Real Estate is officially called the "Viewshed." If you can see your property from the road, or you can see the road from your property, the "Scenic Byways" committee will have legal authority to control your property.

Any, and every, involvement with government, such as a "Scenic Byway" designation, and particularly every proposed involvement with federal government, must be viewed with extreme suspicion.

Even something as apparently innocuous as City Hall accepting a surplus federal government typewriter is always entangled in myriad restrictions and agreements to accept federal regulations that usually are detrimental to the accepting organization and rarely are understood or disclosed to the affected citizens before the transfer is accomplished.

I doubt that the people pushing "Scenic Byway" status for Highway 21 told people living along Highway 21 about all the restrictions on their livelihood and land use, and the loss of their property rights, and the hassle of compliance with crushing federal government regulations, that landowners automatically and unintentionally accept when they allow "Scenic Byway" designation to occur. In fact, the "Scenic Byway" promoters themselves may be largely ignorant of those entanglements. They probably think that "Scenic Byway" designation only "Will promote tourism."

Any time involvement with a federal or state government program is suggested, think of the offered benefit as a fishing worm and the entanglement as a hook hidden inside the worm. This metaphor is a useful tool in the fight to avoid selling your birthright for a meager pottage of so-called "benefits."

Once "Scenic Byway" designation is in effect and the onerous restrictions become known, the entangling federal government regulations that came with "Scenic Byway" designation may make it impossible to un-designate and recover your freedom.

Always remember, Environmentalist radicals, closet Socialists in government, Luddites, World Government proponents and others are all in the game to chip away and finally destroy your Constitutionally protected values, in particular your right to own and use your Private Property. They will promise anything to lure you onboard, and will take away all they can of what you have when they gain control.

You can find basic information on "Scenic Byways" and their associated problems on the Property Rights Research website at http://propertyrightsresearch.org/

William Jud