News - Local News

POSTED: Monday, Jul. 13, 2009

Whatcom County sets goal of saving farmland, but faces tough choices

Henry Bierlink's nightmare scenario is seeing Whatcom County become like the Puyallup Valley: Rich soils ideal for farming but instead covered in condos.

"Without some very clear planning and a concerted effort, that will happen here," said Bierlink, executive director of nonprofit Whatcom Farm Friends.

County leaders agree. On Tuesday, July 7, County Council members voted unanimously to set a target of saving 100,000 acres of farmland in Whatcom County, even as creeping development threatens good farmland. The council also asked county staff to look into tools to help either slow development on farmland or ensure it's built in ways least disruptive to farming.

The goal is to retain a "critical mass" of farming operations to support related industries, including farm equipment dealers and processing facilities.

"We can't afford to lose a lot more land here without a Dairygold plant deciding they can't fill the plant anymore and they've got to build a new plant in Idaho instead of Lynden," Bierlink said.

DOWNZONING

In 1949, about 200,000 acres in Whatcom County were used for farming. By 2002, that number had dropped to less than 150,000.

In all, there's more than 112,000 acres of land left that are good for farming, and another 3,900 homes could still be built on those lands, according to a December 2008 study by the county.

If we need to protect farmland from development, then why don't we just rezone it to allow fewer homes?

That's a controversial question. The county's Agricultural Advisory Committee studied various tools for protecting farmland and delivered a recommendation to the County Council earlier this year. Members recommended against that.

That's because some farmers get loans from banks to continue farming operations based on the value of their land. When the land is downzoned, that reduces the value and may make it difficult to get loans, the report concluded. The committee supported such a move only if the county paid landowners for the lost value.

"It is far, far too disruptive, in our opinion, and not fair," said Bierlink, who's not on the committee but is involved with it. "A lot of (times) in the effort to preserve farming, in taking that approach, you probably end up destroying a lot of it."

Others disagree.

"Everybody wants to wave the flag and say 'we've got to save ag land, it's so important to the future of the county,' and no one is willing to commit to the hard choices and expensive choice if we're really going to do it," said Eric Hirst, a former member of Futurewise Whatcom, the local chapter of the statewide anti-sprawl group.

One of the effective tools is downzoning, he said, particularly on farmland zoned to allow one house per five acres or one house per 10 acres.

Other things the county should examine are charging developers impact fees in rural areas, making it more expensive to build there, and limiting the ability to get well water for homes, he said.

OTHER TOOLS

In 2001, county government set up a program using property tax revenue to buy the rights to build homes on farmland, which prevents home construction and leaves the land available for farming.

The program, called Purchase of Development Rights, made its first purchase in 2004. But as of the last quarter of last year, just 11 purchases were complete, preventing construction of 84 homes.

Theoretically, if the county wanted to buy its way out of the entire problem, it could cost $450 million to buy all 3,900 housing development rights, according to the study. And it would only work if the property owners were interested in selling.

The advisory committee looked at other tools, ranging from allowing farmers to reconfigure their land parcels so they can build homes in places that won't inhibit their farming to tying development rights to natural resources (for example, if a farmer gave up the right to build a house, he or she could get water for farming).

WHAT'S NEXT

County staff will explore various tools, but they won't have any time soon to develop and propose changes.

Nothing is likely to come forward before 2010, said Rebecca Craven, planning and policy analyst for the County Council.

"The overall deal is that there are no easy answers," county planner Dean Martin said. "I think, in general, the resolution itself, the 100,000 acres, is quite significant. It's going to put quite a bit of pressure on the county itself to make some difficult decisions."

FEDERAL MATCH LOST

Whatcom County has lost federal matching money for a program that uses property tax money to buy development rights from owners of farmland. It's used to prevent home construction in farming areas.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will no longer provide that money, county planner Dean Martin said.

The federal government's last census of farmland showed lots of farmland has been lost here, more than county officials think is actually the case.

At the same time, it changed its formula for calculating matching funds, and the amount of money available dropped. It's hard to point to any one cause, Martin said, but the result is the funding is gone.