Some Lobbyists Say Land-Use Regs Are Just Hooey

In every Connecticut town, residents have a different idea about what they should see when they look out the window.

Should it be a city street? Suburbs? A forest? A farm?

But as towns take more of a say in how land should be used, business becomes more difficult for industries that require large tracts of acreage.

That struggle has united two industries, farmers and home builders, against the growing number of towns passing new rules limiting business’ use of land.

Farmers who have been working the same land for generations are facing new rules and proposed rules about how large they can build new barns, how they clear space for fields and how they control livestock and chickens.

“We’re seeing just more and more attempts to curtail how land use is utilized,” said Bonnie E. Burr, lobbyist for the Connecticut Farm Bureau.

For builders, keeping track of 169 different inklings isn’t easy. The group considers local zoning changes a severe clamp on business and a sort of war on suburbia. On the group’s Web site, one can learn about books such as “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”

Seeking Solon Solace

So as more towns become unhappy with what they see out their windows, more bills that would restrict land use have found their way to the General Assembly. One would give towns greater control over wetlands, which would keep farmers from clearing trees from and planting on certain parts of their land, and prevent developers from building anything there.

So it follows that the farmers consider groups like the Homebuilders Association of Connecticut important allies in the lobbying fight.

“They are usually with us because it’s about what you can do with the land,” Burr said.

Should the two groups win the land use battle however, don’t expect them to remain buddy-buddy too much longer.

Because it isn’t just ideological wetlands-lovers who are driving new rules in the legislature, it’s the people buying the new homes. Or, in other words, the customers of the homebuilders.

The influx of those who want nice, big pseudo-country houses in the formerly rural parts of the state drives big business to homebuilders. But they are the very same people who complain about farms to town leaders.

When they decide where to build their new homes, people love to choose romantic spots in the country. Looking out at a quaint family farm sounds particularly nice.

What they don’t realize –- or care about — is that those farms are businesses, and in a lot of cases struggling businesses that might need to make changes to stay afloat.

Agri-biz

Dairy farmer Paul Miller said a new rule in Pomfret has kept him from adding a new barn because of a restriction on building anything more than 10,000 square feet. He said residents complain about the noise of machinery and even the idea to change a stonewall fence, which might look nice, to a fence that functioned much better.

Meanwhile, he said he took out a $300,000 loan recently “just to pay the bills.”

“They want to be able to look at a nice green field, but they don’t want anyone to spread manure on it,” Miller said.

In some cases, the residents who pester town leaders to quiet down the local farms are also becoming the town leaders. That’s a problem for Burr.

In the Farm Bureau’s newsletter last month, the group complained that town officials today have no understanding of the farmer’s perspective.

“We can no longer assume elected officials have any farm experience at all,” it read.

Burr said fewer elected officials in both towns and the state have “hard experience with land use.” “It can take a while making sure they get trained,” she said.

Maybe residents would prefer that farmers like Miller would just go away, as they are doing in government. And maybe they will. But guess who’s calling the farmers on the phone, offering higher and higher prices for struggling farmland?

That’s right: the homebuilders.

Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.