Just Give Me My Bag of Cash!!!

So the other day I asked the question on this blog  as to where is the Property Value Assurance Guarantee (PVA) in our zoning law that was such a point of discussion several months ago and further back?  Mr. Schneider and other’s on our town board  were promoting this idea heavily.  Mr. Schneider before he was elected to the town board even presented a letter to our town boards endorsing the idea.  The CV blogosphere immediately jumped on board indicating this was the best thing since sliced bread to mitigate the industrial wind property value impact.  And of course anyone who dared not march lock step (like myself) and started applying some actual reasoning to the idiocy of this idea  was immediately marginalized.

The noted property appraiser Michael McCann that reviewed the CV Wind Economic Committee’s report was suggesting a PVA as well. A quote from Mr. McCann.

“The applicant has not agreed to implement any reasonable measures to mitigate the aesthetic impacts of the WET that result in value loss.

Property Value Guarantees are effective tools, if carefully designed to leave property owners “whole”, and even the LBNL author now recognizes the validity of a PVG.”

And a side note here.  I think it is extremely misguided to look at  this situation of property values and assume that stuffing some wind company cash into someone’s pocket is going to make them “ whole” after having to sell and leave a location they love and have so much emotional attachment to.  To me that represents a cold hearted major flaw in the mentality of people who can only measure being whole as being compensated financially.   After all in the end it is the emotional values in your property that make it valuable to you.  The view, the memories, the emotional stability of place and importance of the setting and belonging.  I think it is really absurd to believe that can simply be replaced with a bag of cash from the wind developer.

Now I noted this AM on both CV blogs, Pandora’s and JLL, are once again raising the property values question as related to industrial wind development and quoting McCann.  But I don’t see a word about the PVA from them unless you read well into McCann’s own report.  The blogs are not addressing the obvious absence of what once was being so heavily recommended by the “experts”   And geee it’s a funny thing that after all this property value hoopla and all this group think PVA hoopla that there is NO PVA in the new CV zoning laws.  So once again I will ask…what ever happened to that??????  A lot of time was spent on the CV Wind Economic Committee about property values and they came to essentially the same conclusion McCann did on a PVA. They supported the idea.

Under recommendations number 5 and 6 in the CV wind  economic report:

5. Require property value protection assurance.

6. Require a buyout plan for properties negatively impacted.

For some reason the PVA vanished.  And rightly so because it was and still is a really screwy notion.

Now I am not stupid.  I understand the implications of industrial wind on property values and the part it plays.  But when we going to grasp the to the realization of the far more important issue going on right in front of our noses.

We need to get our heads out of our checkbooks and realize that if all these wind developers get their way regionally  we will have a front row seat and be witness to the wholesale mass  environmental destruction of a beautiful and unique  region on a historical scale and it could all be endorsed by our State on behalf of these developers. Do you have any concept at all of the overwhelming corporate destructive precedent that could be set here right on our doorsteps??? THAT is the story and the insanity of what is happening here.

Yet we put blinders on and approach this from a ridiculous town by town myopic setback approach, and worry about our individual property values.   This is like worrying about the location and value of a deck chair on the Titanic!

What are you going to say to your grandkids if they ask were where you and what where you doing when much of NNY and the once beautiful, and environmentally precious and unique  Golden Crescent was destroyed by an industrial wind development tax scam and scandal? 

Are you going to tell them “Well geee I was primarily  worried  about my property and counting the cash the wind developer gave me to move out so they could continue destroying  the area!!!! Sounded like a good idea at the time!!!”

There has been talk about revolution and noisy protest against Article X if BP brings it here. In the context of the environmental disaster that could occur I think that is exactly what should happen.