See Also
“Local
Historic District Abolished in Monterey, Virginia” - By Leo M. Schwartz (Virginia Land Rights Coalition,
January 15, 2003)
After a successful political battle led by property rights
activists, the Monterey Town Council voted on December 19, 2002
to abolish the town’s historic district, one of 200
local districts in Virginia. The spokesman for the Virginia Department
of Historic Resources in Richmond, commented, “Our
department is not aware of any other local government in Virginia
that has dissolved its historic district.”
Essential Books
& Publications
“Biosphere Reserves—The International Vanguard
of Rural Depopulation”-
National Park Service: Part 2, Positions on Property, Vol. 2,
No. 1
(PRFA, Jan. 1995)
(excerpt)
“Zoning
and Building Codes”
- Positions on Property Vol. 3, No. 2 (PRFA, 1996)
Publication Order Form
Additional Resources
Testimony
to National Parks Subcommittee
Hearing on the National Historic Register, April
21, 2005
By Peter F. Blackman
The National Register is supposed to be elective and an honor.
The National Park Service literature trumpets time and again
that you can do anything you wish with your house without penalty.
The “National Park Service and others will use the
National Register as a bludgeon against the property owner and
trample his property rights, if they can.”
“Supplemental Statement to Testimony”
Subcommittee on National Parks
Hearing on the National Historic Register, April 21, 2005
By Peter F. Blackman
Owner of house in the Historic Green Springs District located
in Louisa County, Virginia, cannot repair his unexceptional,
decrepit house because of National Park Service’s
purported conservation easement on his house. The dispute is
in litigation.
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In-Depth Information
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 Newport Historic
Commission Dictates Expensive Window Replacement: Letter from
James Baillargeron, Newport, R. I., to PRFA, January 26, 2009
Mr. Baillargeron, a 62-year-old veteran who had just retired
from running a lobster boat, removed the old windows from his
house, which is located in a historic district in Newport, Rhode
Island, with the intention of reducing his heating bills by installing
modern vinyl windows, which he ordered. He was reported to the
Historic District Commission, which would not allow him to permanently
install the vinyl windows at a cost of $320.00 each and ordered
him to replace the 25 windows in the house with historically
accurate, new wooden ones that cost $850.00 each.
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 “The
Rights of Religious Institutions Facing Zoning and Historic Preservation”
- By Roman P. Storzer, Storzer & Greene, P.L.L.C. Washington,
D.C.; Twelfth Annual National Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 18, 2008)
In no other area is there as much restriction on religious
exercise, a First Amendment freedom, than in the land use context,
with possibly the exception of prisoners. The federal Religious
Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, RLUIPA, targets landmarking
and land use laws. Zoning boards no longer hold all the power.
Churches, mosques and temples can go to court and get redress
under a relatively strong standard of review.
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 “Property Law
Today—The New Feudalism” -By Peter Blackman, Author
and Attorney, Louisa, Virginia, Speech to the Ninth Annual
National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N.Y., October 22, 2005)
Mr. Blackman discusses the disastrous ramifications of the
disregard of property rights in American law today. He points
out that we “have a burden of proof, but one that
we can ably meet, to show that not only are property rights consistent
with these other human rights, but that property rights are critical
to them.”
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 “National
Historic Register Challenges Private Property Rights—Worth
Commenting” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the
New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 9, No. 2
(Spring 2005).
Formal listing on the National Historic Register is deceptively
portrayed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and
Historic Preservation as non-regulatory, but, once the designation
is in place, the agency uses the weight of its office to enforce
the designation when a building or zoning permit application
is made.
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- “Group
Campaigns to Save Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower” - By
Carol W. LaGrasse PRFA, April 21, 2005
Loyalty to the 80-year old local landmark in Essex County
is fueling a battle led by Elizabethtown resident Gretna Longware
against the DEC’s proposed reclassification of the
area to “wilderness,” apparently at the
behest of influential environmentalists.
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- “Questions
Historic District” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA, Letter
to Editor published in Freeman’s Journal, Cooperstown, N.Y.,
May 7, 1999
Once a building is placed on the National Historic Register,
either individually or as part of a Historic District, the state’s
Environmental Quality Review Act, SEQRA, mandates that every
state and local agency take into account the historic preservation
of the building when the agency receives an application for the
permit.
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