In communities across America neighbors confront each other over land use issues – some as simple as where a property line lies and a fence should be placed, some as complex as should a farmer be allowed to sell his land to a subdivision or commercial developer. In Woodford County, Kentucky, in the heart of Thoroughbred bluegrass country, the fight over how land will be used has been going on since the mid-1970s.

Filmed over a ten year period, LAND (and how it gets that way) follows several people who have been protagonists in the land use wars. The film explores their explanations for what is at stake in how land is used, their interpretations of what drives or motivates everyone involved in the land use wars, and the beliefs that drive their involvement. The “save the landers” believe that land is a precious nonrenewable resource that once developed can never produce food and fiber again. From their perspective, the “best and highest” use of productive farmland is in agricultural production. The “developers” believe that there is an abundance of land and that if a community doesn’t grow and develop, it dies. From their perspective, the “best and highest” use of productive farmland occurs when it is converted to residential or commercial use.

Chronology of events covered by the film

In the late 1980s, Harvey Jones, a local farmer submitted a proposal to subdivide the interior of a farm he owned into several residential lots. At this time, the county’s land use ordinances included the following restrictions on land use in the agricultural district:

5 acre lot minimum and each lot must have a designated amount of road frontage along a state or county road

If more than 2 lots are subdivided from the farm this constitutes a “subdivision” of land requiring a plat

No road can be built into the interior of a farm for the purpose of servicing a subdivision

The proposal by Harvey Jones involved more than two lots in the interior of his farm for which a service road would be built. Like Charter Oaks, this proposal crystallized the discussions and arguments about the pace and nature of growth that had rippled through the county over the last 15+ years. Both those in favor of and opposed to continuing to permit 5 acre residential lots in the agricultural district conducted letter writing campaigns in the local newspaper and telephone rallies. The public hearings on the Harvey Jones proposal were packed, with the courtroom divided between those wearing black and green armbands. Eventually, the Harvey Jones proposal was denied. At this time, the Planning Commission issued a moratorium on residential development in the agricultural district until a Task Force could make recommendations on how this should occur. The Task Force ultimately had 6 members, three from each side of the issue on whether to permit residential development in the agricultural district and if so, in what form.

The Task Force recommendations as eventually adopted by the Planning Commission divided the county into two sectors. In the northern part of the county, which has a predominance of prime agricultural land and where the majority of the historic horse farms are located, was limited to 30-acre minimum lots. In the southern part of the county, which has significantly less prime agricultural land and has more hilly terrain, landowners could request a rezoning for an entire farm from agricultural to rural residential use. This would permit up to 15 residential use lots on a maximum of 20 percent of the land with the remainder conserved for agricultural use. The exact number of lots permitted depended on the size of the farm and the distance the residential lots were setback from the road. The rural residential cluster required the construction of a single road into the farm along which the residential lots would be built.

Libby Jones (no relation to Harvey Jones) explains the situation this way:

Much of the northern end of the county we have protected through zoning, through a minimum of a 30-acre lot size, which really does constitute a farm as opposed to a residential subdivision type lot. The southern end of the county has not been so fortunate. We tried to establish a rural residential ordinance that would protect 80% of the farmland, allowing for development to take place on 20%. Philosophically, that works. It would appear to protect land. But realistically, its not good from the standpoint of extending services because you’ve got your residential areas that are being built on are just spread out all over the place, and if you drive into southern Woodford county today, you’ll see enormous changes; blocks of 1 and 2 and 3 acre tracts and then a doughnut of farmland around it. But it’s not a good way to farm and it’s not a good way to farm and it’s not a good way to grow. We realize that now; it was a mistake....

I think of the discouraging things about any sort of ordinance is that some people are going to find way to benefit from it enormously that may go against the grain of what the original intent was, and I think that’s been true of our rural residential ordinance. What we thought we were creating was the ability of farmers who wanted to remain in agriculture, to be able to get a little cash equity in their land by developing 20% of it and leave the remaining 80% in agricultural production. Instead, what we had happen, because the market is so strong for rural residential lots, is that we’re seeing far more farmers give up their entire practice of agriculture and become full-time developers and pursue buying farms for the purpose of creating rural residential subdivisions. So they have left agriculture and now become developers, and in doing so have come in absolute conflict with what the original intent of the rural residential ordinance was all about.