I feel compelled to respond to Mr. Gilmer's diatribe on property rights (The Citizen, Feb 16, 2000).

You may believe otherwise, but the government frequently “takes” private property without full compensation. Usually, though, it is some small landowner, not the big developers.

In the same issue of The Citizen there was a letter from citizens living near Crabapple Lane concerned about Georgia Power's (a government regulated monopoly) plan to construct a large power transmission line along Crabapple Lane and condemn private property near the corner of Crabapple and Ga. Highway 74 for a power substation.

That landowner will receive next to nothing for his land and the homeowners along Crabapple will certainly see their property values drop. Is this fair? No. Can they expect compensation? Not in this lifetime.

No landowner has a right to the most valuable use of his property, only to use it within the established zoning. If a developer buys land zoned for three-acre residential lots, should he be entitled to have it rezoned commercial simply because he could make more money? If answer is yes, then why have zoning at all?

If I want to build a trash dump next to your house on land I own, then I should be able to do so, right? I certainly hope not.

I have seen, many times in Peachtree City, developers buying land with one zoning and demanding rezoning so they can reach some huge return on investment. If they couldn't make the profit they wanted within the existing zoning, they should not have bought the land in the first place. Is this fair? Certainly, it is.

I believe Mr. Fodor's point is not that we should build a moat around Peachtree City, but that we should slow development until infrastructure (roads, bridges, water and sewer, schools, health and safety support, etc.) can catch up without placing an inordinate tax burden on the existing residents. That certainly seems a worthy goal.

Meanwhile, no one has taken the landowner's property. He still has it and can develop it at some point in the future.

Robert Brown
Peachtree City

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