If the author had put a period after "guy" and not written the rest of this paragraph he would be totally accurate; however, the balance of the paragraph is nonsense and exposes the author as one who has little experience with real estate development. It is very difficult for developers, rich or not, to get anything approved, especially in Fauquier County. The idea that developers can "almost always get whatever they want from zoning boards" is laughable. And often the landowner's interests and the developer's interests are aligned. The land poor farmer would love to be able to sell his tract to a developer for development, but is not able to do so because of the difficulty in getting things approved. The NIMBYs are the problem, of course. I haven't followed the case mentioned in this article, but I'm guessing a disgruntled neighbor is causing the ruckus.
In my experience zoning is the single greatest cause of hypocrisy amoung "Conservatives."
Everyone hates zoning, believes every property owner should have completely free use of their own land for any activity....
Right up until the second before any of their NEIGHBORS does anything with their property that they don't like.