This Land Isn’t Just Business.
It’s Family. Food. Freedom.
If you’d like to support our Legal Defense Fund, this is the page.
In Paonia, Colorado — where goats graze and fruit trees bloom — Sage View Ranch and Fort Austin are more than agricultural land. They are places where families gather, weddings are celebrated, music is shared, food is grown, and visitors from around the world experience authentic rural life through farm stays, agritourism, and hands-on agriculture.
These farms were built in alignment with Delta County’s 2018 Master Plan, which encouraged agritourism as a way to preserve and sustain rural communities. With County guidance something truly special was created — not just for these families, but for the entire valley.
Then, in 2025, everything changed.
Sage View Ranch, Fort Austin, and other rural agritourism businesses became targets of aggressive county code enforcement. Despite years of transparent operation, they were suddenly declared “Unlawful Non-Conforming.” Their history was dismissed. Their compliance erased. Their future threatened.
Now, the County is using the 2024 Land Use Code to push agricultural land toward commercial zoning — ignoring due process, disregarding its own enforcement standards, and pursuing complaints based on blank or verbal accusations. There has been no change of use, yet even websites and social media presence are being treated as violations.
This Is Bigger Than Zoning.
It’s about defending lawful land use.
It’s about protecting family farms and rural livelihoods.
It’s about preserving agriculture that feeds, teaches, gathers, and inspires.
It’s about ensuring due process for those who built in good faith.
How Your Donation Helps
Your contribution directly supports this fight by helping to:
- Cover legal defense costs
- Expose what’s happening
- Protect our land, our guests, and our legacy
- Defend agritourism — locally and everywhere
Even $5 makes a difference. It shows strength in numbers and helps ensure no family is forced to give up what they built with their own hands and hopeful hearts.
Donate today and share this message. Together, we can educate, protect agricultural land, and push for meaningful legal change — creating laws that recognize agritourism as a rightful use on all farmland, as many countries around the world already do.
This land isn’t just business.
It’s food. It’s family. It’s freedom. It’s legacy.
