ALLIANCE FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS

CULLMAN, ALABAMA'S
COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
by Ken Freeman

First, let me say that this article is not directed at or accusatory of the County Commissioners. Its purpose is to expose the full impact of the Cullman Comprehensive Plan. If everyone involved does not have an in depth understanding of the long term implications of this type of government intrusion many well meaning people (including the commissioners) will be misled. Governments never contract, they always seek to expand their powers. Lord Acton’s comment, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," has proved itself throughout history. This plan will eventually control all land usage in Cullman County. What initially may appear to be “for the good of our people” can ultimately enslave them.

An outside entity from Birmingham called The KPS Group (professional planners using the federal play book) is coming into Cullman County at the invitation of city and county planners in a coordinated effort to zone the entire county. This plan would force upon you this socialist vision of how you should conduct your life, how you and your children will be permitted to live your futures and what you will be allowed to do with your own property, if they allow you to keep it.

First, they intend to evaluate all property, private and public, (they call this county assets) and determine what is here and how it should be used. They will not be looking at who the rightful owners are or what they may wish to do with their own property. (This, they say, is done for the greater good of Cullman County?)

Then they will set up UGB’s (urban growth boundaries) which in effect establishes a zoning fence around the areas where human activity will be allowed and where peoples’ "wasteful and destructive natures" can be tightly controlled.

Next, county and city planners will set land use standards for the rest of the county (county wide zoning) such as the very limited and highly regulated land use areas called "buffer zones" and larger "no use areas" called "no build zones" where no humans will be allowed to live or disturb nature.

Then, through a vast array of zoning laws and land use regulations people living outside the "human habitation zones" will be gradually moved out, either bought out with tax payer money at distressed prices or forced off their property by environmental and zoning restrictions.

This will be a slow, insidious process, and as time passes these regulations will become more-and-more restrictive. Like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, federal grant money, mitigation fines and ever increasing regulatory pressure will be applied to force out landowners. They will be squeezed off their land and out of their future.

Here is how the final phase of this land grab program will be accomplished. As population density increases inside the UGB (city), land and resources become scarce and therefore much more valuable. No new growth or expansion will be allowed inside the UGB without large permit fees being extorted from builders and severe restrictions being applied by the planning board. (This, they say, is required to offset environmental damage caused by you just living there) If, for example, you wanted to add a room to your home or build a garage, you must pay permitting credits equal to the impact on the environment. They (the planning board) determine the amount of impact - the bigger the project the higher the permit or "mitigation cost" (Thousands to hundreds of thousand of dollars).

At the same time, people living in the country will have had the value of their property destroyed by regulations, which prevent them from building, farming or living on their own property. Property with no property rights is an expense not an asset. To prevent a total uprising of the populace these dispossessed landowners will be "promised" a buy out by the county zoning board. To this end, it will assign each property a credit value. As money becomes available from businesses and individuals buying permits and paying mitigation fines, both inside and outside the UGB, property owners outside the Urban Growth Boundary will be bought out, forced off their land and into the city.

Example: Businessmen in Cullman want to build a five-story walk up apartment complex (urban ghetto DC style) to house all the people being forced off their land. The permit fee is $100,000 or 100,000 permit credits. At the same time, a farmer’s land is being confiscated. His land is valued at 100,000 permit credits. The mitigation fee (minus taxes of course) is transferred to the farmer. In effect, the money is extorted from the apartment builders as permit fees and paid to the farmer as permit compensation for being forced off his land. (The true value of the land was probably five to ten times what the county gave him; remember the board set the value.)

But (this is the icing on the cake) as the area inside the "Urban Growth Boundary" becomes more and more crowded, land becomes very scare and therefore much more valuable. Should you choose to sell property inside the UGB, you would certainly make a huge profit. So city and county governments impose "unjust enrichment taxes" to recapture (steal) the increased value of the property being sold. (Whatever you paid for your land twenty years ago, is all that you will be allowed to keep). The increased value will go to the planning board to be used to steal other people’s property.

You must also remember that as land is transferred into government hands, the tax base for the county is severely affected. Governments do not pay taxes; so, as private property, which is taxed, is removed from private ownership county revenues will decline. The county must either stop providing services or drastically increase taxes on remaining taxpayers in order to make up the shortfall.

Eventually, the people of Cullman County will end up living in crowded urban areas fenced in by government regulation and the rest of the county will be in "Wilderness Areas" and "Conservation Easements" totally free of human habitation. Some form of government; city, county, federal or the "NGO’s" affiliated with them, will own the vast majority of real estate in Cullman County.

The people will be fenced in and the animals will roam free. Not exactly what our Founding Fathers had in mind when our constitution was written.

This will be a gradual process spread over twenty to twenty five years. Like a lobster in the cooking pot; the heat (the regulation) will be increased so gradually that most people won’t even realize they are in trouble, until they are cooked.

The time to stop this socialist plan is before it starts!

The first step in this unbelievable scheme is the passage of this "comprehensive planning" package. It is the blue print for the entire program. Once in place, it will be very difficult to stop. The place to stop it is right here -right now. Kill this monster before it can hatch. Kill the “Cullman Comprehensive Plan” before it is too big to defeat.

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