I was on a county planning commission for a time...interesting stuff. Ag is ag for a reason - we had a case where the county planning dept shut down someone's doggy daycare on ag and the case was remanded to us. They didn't get a lot of sympathy from me with so much rural zoned land so close by (across the road...). I think the county council let them slide, though.
In our neck of the woods, the big liberal red herring is water shortage. Currently there is a moratorium on building on rural land with exempt wells. Lots of folks hung out to dry. The county council and the district court have imposed the rather onerous condition that the landowner must prove he's not harming senior water users (instream flow) in order to build. Total hose job. My term expired, I couldn't re-up due to redistricting, and they replaced me with the former local rep from a hard left agenda 21 NGO. The commission is a few members away from being a full commie echo chamber.
