Opinion - Top opinion

POSTED: Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

Time for rules to better protect farms and fields

Summer time is prime time for Whatcom County's wonderful berry farms - and the people who love them.

Drop a Whatcom County-grown strawberry in your mouth and you will taste berries very much unlike, and better than, strawberries shipped into your grocery store from California or some farther-away place. Ours are sweeter, juicier, fresher.

Soon, raspberry season will start, too. Not only will those berries taste as good as locally grown strawberries, but their harvest will bring millions of dollars to businesses and residents of our county.

As berry season starts, there is not a better time for our community to talk seriously, again, about whether we are doing enough to protect our farms.

The slowing economy has slowed growth concerns in our community for now. There are few subdivisions being proposed or built on speculation. Banks aren't loaning the money for such endeavors and builders are smartly resisting the urge to build what they may not be able to sell.

Despite the settling, it remains vitally important that our community do whatever possible now to guarantee there will always be berry harvests in Whatcom County.

First, our leaders must do more to protect farms and farming from the encroachment of cities and suburbs. Some areas in Whatcom County with particularly good soils are among the fastest growing, especially around Lynden.

Rural areas are being developed, using clustering and other techniques, at levels that sometimes resemble suburbs. How many rural places in Whatcom County can you go and see a cul-de-sac with several homes?

The county's rules for such growth are currently so poor that the state board in charge of growth laws has ordered the county to fix its rural zoning and not allow so much growth.

The good news is that the demand for property to develop is currently very low. Now is the time for our political leaders to make it so those rural lands can never be developed as cities or suburbs.

And, as county and city officials go through planning documents making that happen, they need to push for changes in the cities as well.

Too many people in our cities say they don't want growth in the rural areas, but also refuse to allow leaders to add growth in their neighborhoods. Recent ideas in the city of Bellingham, for example, that would allow "mother-in-law housing" and other forms of new housing and increased density in existing neighborhoods have met with fierce opposition from residents.

As a community we simply can't have it both ways. Whatcom County will continue to grow. More people will move here. If we do not allow them to move into our existing neighborhoods, they will move into our rural areas and threaten our rural way of life.

There are no easy answers in our growth debates, only tough tradeoffs.

But our editorial board continues to believe that saving our farms and fields is the top priority. We believe that most Whatcom County residents think the same way.

We urge our leaders considering growth plans and rules to continue to act on that priority even when a few loud voices try to stop them from doing so.