History, lifestyles, and vistas are threatened

‘journey through hallowed ground’ is the very essence of preservation—and free enterprise

By James Bacon

Date published: 1/31/2008

RICHMOND—Imagine the dilemma you face if you live in Orange, Berryville, The Plains, or any of the dozens of hamlets and small towns in Virginia’s northern piedmont.

You reside in one of the most beautiful places in the United States: one of the few spots that can compete with, say, the Cotswolds in England or Tuscany in Italy for the beauty of its natural and manmade landscapes. You love your way of life, but it’s threatened by sprawl emanating from the Washington metropolitan area.

If you don’t act, you’ll be overrun by subdivisions and shopping centers populated by people who commute to work in Herndon or Tysons Corner, and have no roots in the community or sympathy for its small-town lifestyle.

What do you do? In today’s society, you have one of two choices.

The easiest way—the way chosen by most communities threatened by growth—is to pass zoning ordinances, enact restrictive comprehensive plans, and file lawsuits against any developer who slips through the net. In sum, you trample property rights into the red clay.

Or you can try what the people of in Virginia’s the northern piedmont have done. You create an organization like the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, dedicated to preserving the integrity of its communities while honoring the tenets of private property and free enterprise.

JTHG involves a swath of territory running along U.S. 15 from Monticello to the Gettysburg battlefield, and is a grass-roots movement that encompasses local governments, Main Street communities, vineyard owners, equestrians, organic farmers, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, B&B propri- etors, and caretakers of historical sites as famous as James Madison’s

Montpelier estate and as obscure as the Goose Creek Bridge on a Civil War-era turnpike.

Led by Cate Magennis Wyatt, familiar to many Virginians as secretary of commerce during the Wilder administration, JTHG has set an audacious goal: to stimulate economic activity that is consistent with the region’s existing way of life. If property values rise sufficiently, Wyatt reasons, farmers and other landowners won’t feel pressured to sell out to real-estate developers.

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Date published: 1/31/2008