The erosion of property rights

By Larry Salzman
web posted October 18, 2004

Imagine you've been enjoying your backyard picnic table and
chairs for the past 10 years when suddenly, for no apparent
reason, you are served notice from a government agency that
you will be fined $6,000 a day unless you remove them.

Or, imagine you would like to add a stone walkway to your
garden. You begin to research the procedure and costs, only to
learn that a lengthy application will be required, with multiple
hearings before a state commission. You find yourself embroiled
in a Kafkaesque legal battle costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Finally, after years of struggle the government demands, as a
condition for approving your little walkway, that you "donate" a
portion of your land to the state.

Do these sound like nightmarish stories out of some totalitarian
regime?

Shockingly, they are normal, everyday incidents for property
owners across the nation.

In California, for example, a state agency called the California
Coastal Commission routinely tramples the property rights of
coastal landowners. People residing within five miles inland of
California's 1,100 miles of coastline are subject to the
commission's power to approve or deny improvements involving
"any solid structure" on their property. This can include adding a
room to a home, planting trees, adding a fence or garden
walkway and, yes, in one current Orange County case, a picnic
table and chairs.

Established in 1976, the California Coastal Commission's
mandate is to "preserve, protect . . . and restore the resources of
the coastal zone for the enjoyment of the current and succeeding
generations." The Commission operates on the premise that the
roughly 1.5 million acres under its jurisdiction are a "priceless
natural heritage of all the people," ignoring the fact that the
"priceless heritage" of California's coastline is abutted by private
homes and businesses whose owners paid dearly for their
property.
 
"All the people" have no right to demand that landowners
sacrifice their property for the interests, real or alleged, of non-
owners. If one owns property, one has the moral right to control
it--even if that conflicts with the esthetic tastes or priorities of
non-owners. One has the right to acquire property and, once
acquired, to use it without interference from others, subject to
only one condition: an owner must not interfere with the rights of
his neighbors to do likewise. Your life and property belong to
you not to others.
 
The California Coastal Commission and other agencies like it
stand the very purpose of government on its head. The
Declaration of Independence reminds us that it is only "to secure
these rights," that "governments are instituted among men." A
legitimate governmental agency would not violate property rights
by telling an owner how he must use his property--it would do all
that it could to protect the owner in his right to develop his
property according to his best judgment.
 
Once we accept the principle that the government can deprive
some individuals of their right to property, there is no basis to
reject the complete usurpation of private property. If a home
owner on California's coast can be ordered to stop building a
shower, a shed, or a walkway, or to refrain from placing chairs
and a table in his backyard, what prevents the state from gutting
the right to property anywhere in America?
 
Indeed, all around the country there are escalating attacks on
homeowners' property rights. In Lake Tahoe the smallest details
of lakeshore homes, including their paint color, are regulated by
a multi-state planning board. In Washington, D.C., a landlord
cannot sell his own property without permission from his tenant.
Near San Francisco certain homes designated as "affordable"
can be sold for no more than a government-controlled price. In
Portland there are wide swaths of the city in which one cannot
build a single-family home on one's own land, even if it is
adjacent to other suburban homes. In hundreds of U.S. cities,
various laws establishing "historical districts," "landmarks," or
"improvement zones" straightjacket owners who are
consequently unable to remove trees, erect fences, add rooms,
or even change rain gutters.
 
Government boards, agencies and commissions with this kind of
authority should be opposed not on a case-by-case basis, but on
principle. The only proper state policy with respect to private
property is: hands off! In America, no governmental agency
should have the power to deprive an individual of his property
rights.

Larry Salzman is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute
(www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, CA. Copyright © 2004 Ayn
Rand® Institute, 2121 Alton Parkway, Suite 250, Irvine, CA
92606. All rights reserved.

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