Northwoods Development

by Kerry Thomas

March 28, 2003

I must respond to the letter from Rebecca Rathkamp entitled "We Must Be Cautious" in the March 28 edition of the Lakeland Times.

The gist of her letter seems to point out stronger restrictive zoning in our area, and a halt to further developments here. She laments a few open vacant areas around town. I wonder when was the last time she took a drive off the beaten path of Hwy 51? We have literally hundreds of square miles of undeveloped woodlands immediately around the greater Lakeland area, much of it hasn't seen a human footprint since it was logged off in the 1900's.

Taking a look at a property map, the open fields she notes are privately owned. It is the Right of those private property owners to do as they please with their property, and most private property owners are responsible citizens and neighbors. If you don't like what someone chooses to do with their private property, buy it yourself, and do as you will. See the letter from the daughter of Catherine Wolter in the same edition. Mrs. Wolter preserved her own land as she wanted it, and near the end of her life she donated it to an organization that shared her vision.

I can remember when the nearest fast food joint was a 2 hour drive away, as were discount shopping centers. Obviously there was a demand for those businesses here, as evidenced by their presence today. Having lived nearly my entire life up here, the fifth generation of my family to call the Northwoods home, I've heard the cries of "too much development" for more than 30 years now.

It's ironic that most of these cries come from people who have moved here in the last 10 years or less. Most of them own less than 5 acres of land, which was subdivided at one time or another by a developer. Yet another case of "I got mine, now no one else can get theirs." Even one former St. Germain town board member, who moved here within the last 10 years, bought and sub-divided a chunk of land, built an apartment complex, then miraculously the St. Germain town board voted to ban any further apartment complexes and changed the minimum lot size to 2.5 acres, not the 1.5 acre lots this guy plotted. And now he's ranting about the evils of real estate developers!

Dare I remind people of the tragic events in Adams county last month, when a private property owner who was adamant about his private property rights, was involved in a situation where it ended, according to media reports, in the death of a sheriff's department deputy.

Yes, most private property owners in the area do acknowledge their responsibility that accompanies ownership. And most do value trees, lakes, wildlife, etc. But for the minority of owners who prefer cleared lands, or who own property with a building closer to the waterfront than most have, do we not also need to acknowledge their property rights, too? In a representative Republic (not a democracy) the rights of the minority are supposed to be protected equally with those of the majority.

I would rather property rights be determined by those of us who live here, rather than being dictated from Madison or Washington.