After considerable thought, I have concluded that the effort to save Ag land in Snohomish County is destined to fail. The evidence reflecting the actions of government regulators does not indicate that saving farmers is a priority. In my mind, without farmers you don’t have farms. If we are serious about preserving Ag land but not farmers, what is our actual goal?
Preserving Ag land is not my primary focus; preserving farmers is my priority. If we can create an environment where farmers can thrive, the Ag land issue will take care of itself.
Snohomish County will be holding its annual FOCUS ON FARMING Conference later this month. Instead of holding the conference at the Evergreen Fair Grounds, it has been moved to the Lynnwood Convention Center. In my mind, that move to Lynnwood is a message in itself.
The Agriculture Advisory Board is advocating that farmland be down zoned from ten acre minimum site size to forty acre minimum site size. Their solution is to make the land parcel size drive the solution. How many farms can we think of that are less than forty acres? I mean how many “did we used to know” that were less than forty acres?
If we want to FOCUS ON FARMING, the solution needs to be worked out by reviewing the factors that drive farmers out of business and work back from there. Market forces, debt, available labor force and government regulation are all factors that affect farmers. There are many other variables as well. Most of them are not problems government can play a part in solving.
As an advocate for a government, I would recommend we develop an Agriculture Impact Statement we could use to test the various effects of existing and proposed regulations on financial and operational aspects of farming.
From a regulatory standpoint, I would be looking at ways government infringes on a farmer’s right and ability to farm. If we can make it easier for a farmer to make a living while he grows something we all need, how can we go wrong? What does it cost us?
THE SAD REALITY
Being in the heart of an urban county, Snohomish County’s Ag lands are at risk from a variety of forces. Pressures from urban growth clearly pose a challenge in our county as they do in other urban counties. County Planning Commission members and County Council members are given the task of determining where it is appropriate for growth to occur. Ag land that is not being farmed suggests that agriculture does not pay well enough to risk a crop. This very visible fact is hard to ignore.
Does it make sense that land designated for Industrial use be held in reserve forever even if there is no demand for that use. Economic return does need to be considered when we look at land use designations. In most cases, we look at alternative uses for underutilized land. Should that be different with regard to agriculture land?
If you listen to the “no net loss of Ag lands” arguments, it is suggested that if you convert Ag land for some other purpose in one place you have to replace it with two times that amount somewhere else. If Ag land is so limited, how can we just conjure up new Ag land to replace lost land? If we have spare Ag land it should already be inventoried, right? I guess I am just too dim to understand how that works.
There are several locations in Snohomish County where Ag land has been sold to environmental groups with the intent to (convert) turn the land into swamps and wetlands. The Biringer Farm south of Marysville is now owned by the Port of Everett and will be flooded to mitigate the loss of critical areas on the Everett waterfront. Preserving Ag land certainly was a priority there wasn’t it? How do we reconcile the loss of that Ag land?
I am confused about the intent of our county when we talk about “preserving farm land” because what I see is just “preventing the land from being used for urban uses”, but certainly not preserving it for farming purposes.
ECONOMIC VIABILITY
Farming does need to be economically viable. The reality of the farm land issue is simple. If you can’t work the land, grow a crop or raise a critter to sell for more than it cost to do the task, you will stop and look for a better use of the land. The fact that it has been used for farming purposes for many years does not insure that it will forever. There still needs to be a profitability component.
For me, the only way we can assure that there will be farming is to be sensitive to the government regulation that slowly chokes to death small farmers in urban counties. If the Department of Ecology regulations force farmers to address pollution discharge issues without considering what complying will cost to small farmers, how is preserving the land a value?
Federal and State regulations rarely consider the negative impacts they create. Federal and State regulators rarely care about the negative impacts they create. Their preferred regulatory ecosystem will be the death of others. Environmentalists have sued the government to force them to regulate discharges into rivers and streams where the levels of certain chemicals exceed a particular level. In many cases that affects farmers in seriously bad ways. If the threat of lawsuits drives the regulatory process, how can there be a positive outcome for farms?
LOCAL VISION
If the Federal and State governments are currently imposing regulations that promote the priorities of the majority of citizens in our county, we should abandon the effort to save farms and get on with a plan that incorporates acceptable economic uses for the land that fit within the restrictive regulatory framework. It can’t be too hard. We already sacrificed the upland Ag ground everywhere in Snohomish County, what is the big deal with the flood plain stuff? Where was the fight for upland Ag?
I would be interested in seeing examples of farmers who are thriving anywhere in the state. Then if it is possible, I would like to see examples of successful farmers here in Snohomish County. I would like to see if there are management practices they use that can be taught to the others. I would like to better understand why so many farmers struggle to stay alive when there are supposedly farmers that comply with regulations and make a profit. What is their secret?
Are there model farms to look at?
How about a “demonstration project” to show the farmers how to make it? Our county is always good for a demonstration project.
If on the other hand, preserving the act of farming was not your intent, then you have a wholly different situation.
If all you really want to do is prevent the land from being used for urban development, rezoning the land to mandatory open space designation would be difficult. That might be ruled a “taking”. You have to appear to champion a more appealing cause that sounds noble to people that don’t care one way or the other.
It appears to me that the agenda of the pro-farming environmental crowd is inclined to be of the “mandatory open space” persuasion. The Federal and State regulations are more often than not driven by the same folks who cry loudly about preserving farm land. What other conclusion can we come to?
Environmentally motivated restrictions on agriculture will doom farmers and farms. There has to be balanced consideration of the goals against the outcomes. Without placing a higher value on the farmers and farms, the outcome for either of them is bleak.
No Loss for Words 
FCC or NO FCC, that is the question!
by Steve DanaA guest editorial in the November 29, 2008 Everett Herald by Kristin Kelly addressed the issue of Fully Contained Communities (FCC). Ms. Kelly presented a compelling argument for at least a review of the development regulations that enable FCCs. The fact is that existing regulations for FCCs fill ten or twelve pages in the County Development Code and are very restrictive. The question is not “How do we regulate them?” but rather “Do we want to allow them under any circumstances?” I don’t think council members are talking straight with us. The decision to address FCCs could have been made a year ago or more, why now?
The part of the editorial that troubles me is the part that suggests that Snohomish County Council members were looking out for the rest of us when they voted for the moratorium. My experience has been that moratoriums are used to address emergencies. Is there an emergency here?
I doubt that county elected officials have much concern for our quality of life when you look at the types of development allowed by Snohomish County Zoning both inside Urban Growth Boundaries and outside.
Urban Zoning regulations adopted by Snohomish County facilitate the pillaging of undeveloped land inside Urban Growth Areas. Cities at the center of the UGAs will ultimately be responsible for providing services but will not have been a part of the planning process that created the development. The needs of the ultimate urban community will not have been factored into the plan because Snohomish County will have already filled the land with development.
We originally drew Urban Growth Boundaries to focus where cities could expand as population growth came to the county. Cities expected to plan for how the land would be used in ways that address a full range of land uses. The overall needs of the cities would be considered in the process.
In places where sewers exist inside an Urban Growth Boundary but outside city limits, Snohomish County has implemented the county plan and preferences rather than the city preferences. Take a look at Cavalero’s Hill along East Hewitt.
In places where sewers exist outside Urban Growth Boundaries, the county zoned the land for urban development and moved ahead with construction to capture the permit fees and sales tax revenue from construction in spite of the fact that no urban growth should be allowed. Period!
The Seattle Hill development area is not included in any city’s UGB. Silver Firs and all the other developments that have been popping up in that area are at a minimum in violation of the intent of growth management and possibly the letter of the law as outlined in the Growth Management Act. Urban development should have stopped in this area when the land was not included in any Urban Growth Area.
Currently the city of Everett is considering expanding its UGA further east to include fully developed neighborhoods allowed by county regulations. They aren’t doing it to be good guys, they are doing it to get a tax break from the state. The cost of providing services to the Hilton Lake/Eastmont will be greater than the revenue they collect. Maybe a different Comp Plan for the area might have provided a better result. What’s there now make little sense.
Mill Creek is the city closest to Silver Firs, but they have no desire to take on the responsibility for providing services to the area since there is little reward and a lot of liability. Where is the tax base that will pay for the services needed by those neighborhoods? How do the miles of subdivisions fit into an overall plan for the area? Where is the “comprehensive” part of the planning or do you call it something else?
In rural areas things are no better. The Cluster Subdivision regulations represent most of the bad characteristics of rural development. Except for the one part where open space is preserved, clusters do nothing to preserve rural character. Consider that the net density in areas where density bonuses are allowed is down to almost one dwelling unit per two acres rather than the one DU per five acres we normally associate with rural lands. The Growth Management Act suggests that rural development standards should include a variety of densities, but I doubt they meant less than five acre minimum site sizes.
If our goal is to reduce sprawl and excessive land consumption in rural areas, the current plan does not deliver. Add to that the urban character of the development and we find ourselves back where we began with growth management trying to rein in one and two acre building sites.
For the environmental community, securing large tracts of dedicated open space satisfies their needs. For the development community, getting enhanced lot yield satisfies their needs. How do the rest of us get what we need from our county representatives?
For the community of county residents left with the aftermath of development, we have increased the usage of the infrastructure through density bonus to exceed the level of service standards for rural roads and water systems but not added enough homes to spread the cost of improving the infrastructure over an economic number of payers? Who will pick up the tab for those improvements? Two acres per dwelling unit is the least efficient density for urban infrastructure maintenance and the property owners in the clusters are thinking they need maintenance on their arterial roadways.
I cannot think of one area where Snohomish County Council members have given us encouragement that they are looking out for the general population. They certainly have pushed a strong environmental agenda, but there aren’t too many wins for the average taxpayer. That troubles me.
Posted in Environmental, Political commentary, Snohomish County Council, Snohomish County Political Commentary | 2 Comments »