First of all, the headline seems a bit exaggerated. Is this really a “nightmare” for the state of Vermont as a whole? Do most residents of the state even care? There are perhaps at least some Vermonters who don’t or wouldn’t regard the establishment of a 20,000-person town near Tunbridge as apocalyptically evil. Some businessmen and builders would probably like it. And some government officials, state and county, would very possibly appreciate the increased tax revenue.
But I have some other issues.
You can like this idea or hate it. Think it brilliant or crazy. Whatever.
But did David Hall steal the land that he now owns? Apparently not. Is it really his? Yes, evidently it is. Does he plan to do anything illegal with it? So far as I’m aware, he doesn’t.
I’m libertarian enough to think that people have a right to do what they want to do — on the whole and within some reasonable but also relatively minimal limits — with their own property.
I can sympathize with the concerns of those in the area. If I lived there, I might actually share them. But I don’t imagine that my concerns would give me much if any right to stop someone from doing something legal with his own property.
Yes, yes. I know that there are such things as zoning laws and restrictive covenants. But they apparently don’t apply in this case.
By far the best way to prevent a plot of ground from being used for something that you don’t like is to buy that plot of ground. Or, if you already own it, to decline to sell it to the person who wants to use it in a way of which you disapprove. With certain specific exceptions, I don’t have the right to tell people what they can and cannot do with property that they own and that I don’t.
Posted from Newport Beach, California
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