“Are government officials upset that someone can survive without them? Thirty years ago, Eustace Conway bought 100 acres in North Carolina with a vision of a self-sufficient, simpler life style. Turtle Island Preserve became his home and livelihood, with income earned by teaching eager groups self-dependence using nothing but the land and their wits. He lives simply without the need for a single government subsidy, program, or hand out. The now 1000 acre settlement is a working, educational farm, with every building and facility made from materials and often forgotten skills once utilized by our pioneering ancestors. This lost art of survival, and simple living is alluring to many in a culture that is consumed with materialism and dependence on the government.
However, last September, the Watauga County Planning Department cited several health and sanitary violations in Conway’s encampment. After decades of operating Turtle Island Preserve, suddenly the mountain man is a threat to public safety and welfare! He has been told to cease and desist with public camps until the buildings are torn down or rebuilt with the violations rectified. The County has threatened to condemn the buildings. Conway’s primitive outhouses, kitchen, food storage facilities, and building construction do not meet State building codes. For example, his lumber was improperly marked and labeled. Unlike commercially labeled lumber, Conway cut and prepared the lumber at his own sawmill. Though this is private land, and the groups contract willingly with full knowledge of the primitive nature of the Preserve, (which indeed is the point of the Preserve), the county now requires that Conway’s property meet modern code standards. Conway argues that his construction methods have been around for hundreds of years, and recent engineering studies found his facilities superior to modern code standards. Indeed, his construction methods predate code standards themselves!
At its core, this case is a property rights issue. How pivotal is the issue of private property rights to a free society? Are property rights less important than other “human rights”? Is private property ownership fair and just? To what degree can or should the government infringe upon private property?” Read the rest of this article…