02/22/2005: "Re: Breaking News Story in San Juan County"

When our founding fathers were debating the form and substance of a new government the issue of "rights" was a paramount concern. Little noticed today was the question of whether rights should be defined prior to writing a constitution – whether "rights came first." Although our constitution was written without reference to specific rights, its adoption was conditioned upon adoption of ten amendments that are today called The Bill of Rights.

Certain rights were universally believed to be "inalienable." We take this term for granted for life, liberty, speech, religion and press. The initial bill of rights (Virginia's, adopted June 12, 1776) included "acquiring and possessing property." The full sentence: "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

Subsequent experience has amply demonstrated that liberty is not possible without corresponding protections for property rights. Put another way, diminishment of property rights is a diminishment of freedom. Since speech, religion and press are more a less a matter of opinion or conscience it is difficult to control or deny them by the state's usual tools (execution, jail, taxation, regulation); and most enlightened societies leave these rights relatively unencumbered. The "means of acquiring and possessing property," on the other hand is often abused.

Here in San Juan County, the use and possession of real estate has been under continuing attack. A common occurrence is that several land owners each purchase a lot and one immediately builds a house. Some years later this home owner decides that further "growth" is destroying the character of the islands that he so loves. So he and his political buddies get the county government to put in place a policy of "reigning in growth" and seek to deny his neighbors the right to build on their lots. There has even been widespread talk to the effect that "we" cannot "afford" to let homes be built on each of the existing undeveloped parcels of land (as otherwise allowed in our GMA comprehensive plan). And the election of Alan Lichter has given credibility to the notion of restricting the floor area of new construction (that would have prohibited the house that we now call Rosario).

These anti-property sentiments are anti-liberty. They are, though, routinely accepted in Aspen and Nantucket; and for this reason alone, we ought to avoid them. The character of a community is rightly the concern of all of the community's citizens. And the natural environment is certainly important. But a community is defined by many attributes. Aspen and Nantucket are thought of as elite, very costly to live in and otherwise as overly gentrified – and nothing about these communities can be characterized as environmentally friendly. It is quite astounding that the protect-the-environment crowd is so quick to call for implementation of any growth management technique used in either of these communities.

Suspension or restriction of property development rights without just compensation might be beneficial to the environment at the margin – but the offense to fundamental principals of liberty is almost beyond evaluation. It is very troubling to realize that so many islanders seem willing to suspend their neighbors' property rights. The choice should not be between the environment and property rights, but rather the cost that we are prepared to shoulder – and especially whether that cost will be borne by all or just those that have not yet improved their property.

Albert B. Hall
Friday Harbor
360-378-6697