Supporters say the heritage area designation would have no impact on zoning, and that any limitations on development that might occur would happen only voluntarily, perhaps as conservation easements granted to the states in exchange for tax credits, or by community agreement. Any land-preservation that occurs would be voluntary on the part of the land owners, supporters say.
"It's all honorific and self-selection," said Wyatt. "It's completely voluntary. . . . There are no regulatory overlays on land use."
Some local residents are applauding the efforts. Frank S. Walker, whose family has lived in the area since the 1700s and who conducts historic tours of the area around Orange, is disgusted with what is happening to the still-rural area, which has become a housing mecca for people who work in Charlottesville and Fredericksburg.
"We're in the process of paving it over, pulling it down and selling it off -- and a lot of it has already happened," said Walker, who has arranged to place his 242-acre family homestead in a conservation easement. The Piedmont Environmental Council, based in Warrenton, which is also participating in the Journey effort, is seeking to woo other property owners into putting their properties under easements in exchange for federal income tax deductions and state tax credits.
But the effort to promote the Old Carolina Road as a heritage area is being launched in the face of a burgeoning and strengthening property rights movement, with growing numbers of people worried about governmental entities seeking to control other people's land. The property rights movement has been galvanized in the wake of the Supreme Court's June decision on Kelo v. New London, where the New London, Conn., government had sought to acquire homes through eminent domain to build a waterfront hotel and office complex. The Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 that the government be permitted to continue with its plan. Several state legislatures have rushed to enact legislation to prevent similar urban development projects within their borders.
Knight, the property rights advocate, runs his office out of an old brick building in downtown Warrenton, directly on the Journey's route. He says that although he too loves historic structures, government intervention in land use is problematic. He worries a national heritage area designation would be an opening wedge toward new regulations along the Route 15 corridor.
"More and more often we're seeing historic preservation and cultural preservation being used by ideologues within the environmental and historical community to cordon off massive amounts of land and deny the people in those regions the ability to grow and bring commerce into their communities," Knight said.
Knight worries that preservation activism could lead to more land restrictions. "Certain core areas are historically significant, and then not only those are deemed untouchable but also the buffer zones are also cordoned off. Then buffer zones on the buffer zones and so on," he said.
In a report issued last year, the Government Accountability Office said it could not find a single example nationwide of a heritage area affecting private property values or use, although the report added that the designations encourage local governments to adopt land-use policies "consistent with the heritage areas' plans," which could "indirectly influence zoning and land use planning."
In its efforts to underscore support ofprivate property rights, the Senate bill passed last month authorizing the new heritage areas contained language that said the bill should not be construed to "modify, enlarge or diminish any authority of federal, state or local governments to regulate any use of privately owned lands," or to permit any local coordinating entity "any authority" to do so.
Bartlett, a political conservative, bristles at criticism from property rights advocates.
"I'm a big, big property rights supporter, and nobody who knows me can question it," Bartlett said.
