Yes, there are a lot of ways around them, if you want to hire a bunch of lawyers and estate planners. These appear to be just simple folks who had no idea that the government was out to screw them. I've seen it repeated time after time.
And they aren't making any exceptions.
The kicker is that I have been planning on going to City Council meetings for quite some time. If I had been going, I would have seen this coming and done something else instead.
These poor folks had plenty of time to create a limited S-Corp or some such thing. It would probably only have put them back a couple of thousand. If they couldn't afford that, then they could have sold a small sliver of the land to pay the lawyer bills; rather than now having to sell off the whole property.
If we don't keep ourselves informed about the big bad wolf of government, then he will come knocking on our door at very inopportune moments and we will be screwed.