2nd Fee Plan Might Open Coastal Zone in Carlsbad

The City Council agreed Tuesday to allow property owners to pay a fee for the privilege of building on land reserved for agriculture in Carlsbad’s coastal zone.

The action, if approved by the state Coastal Commission, would enable developers to pay $5,000- to $10,000-per-acre fees to convert designated farmland into subdivisions or other projects.

The fee would be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the estimated cost of preserving prime agricultural land, city planner Gary Wayne said. Money collected would be put in a fund managed by the state Coastal Conservancy.

Under the city’s proposal, the funds would be spent on environmental projects. An enhancement program at Batiquitos Lagoon would be the first beneficiary; others include a planned nature center at Buena Vista Lagoon, the restoration of Carlsbad’s eroding beaches and, last on the list, the purchase of land for farming elsewhere in the city.

Carlsbad officials say that developers should be allowed to build on cropland because agriculture is no longer profitable in the coastal zone. They also cite a philosophical motivation: Property owners should be permitted to use their land as they wish, they contend.

Approval of the “mitigation fee” Tuesday was part of the ongoing fine-tuning of a master plan for development of Carlsbad’s coastal zone. That plan, known as the Local Coastal Program, will be the object of the city’s long-awaited showdown with the California Coastal Commission at a hearing next week in Los Angeles.

For nearly 10 years, the council has battled with the commission over the coastal plan--a set of land-use policies mandated under the state Coastal Act that, once approved by both agencies, awards local officials authority over coastal zone development.

In 1982, the relationship took its worst turn when Carlsbad officials refused to prepare their required coastal plan and the state Legislature ordered the Coastal Commission to do the job for them.

Sparking the most disagreement has been the issue of preserving farmland in a 6,400-acre area roughly bounded by Batiquitos Lagoon, Interstate 5, Tamarack Avenue and El Camino Real, and excluding Agua Hedionda Lagoon and Palomar Airport.

Commission analysts, armed with the state Coastal Act, say that much of the city’s coastal acreage must be reserved for farming. City officials disagree, citing the rights of land owners and studies that show that agriculture in the coastal zone is no longer a viable venture.

In an effort to end the standoff--and thus be awarded sole permit authority in the coastal area--city officials recently proposed two options that would enable property owners to, in effect, pay dues for the right to develop agricultural land. One permitted developers to build on farmland with no penalty if a study, validated by the city, showed that agriculture is no longer economically feasible on their property. The second, decidedly innovative, proposal suggested that property owners be allowed to develop their land if they purchase an equal amount of prime agricultural land elsewhere in the state. That land, in Marin or Monterey counties, for example, would then be turned over to the state Coastal Conservancy and retained in agricultural production.

Councilman Mark Pettine and several residents, however, expressed concerns that the latter option would only preserve agricultural land outside of Carlsbad. Pettine and others said they favored a system that would retain some farmland within the city. Consequently, Carlsbad planners proposed adding the mitigation fee to the list of options available to developers.

Some observers likened the fee to an agricultural subsidy program that the Coastal Commission created for Carlsbad in 1982 as part of the plan it drafted for the city. Under that controversial program, administered by the Coastal Conservancy, some developers paid a $27,000-per-acre fee for the right to build. Part of that money was given to farmers, who agreed never to develop their property. The rest was earmarked for capital improvements, such as irrigation systems designed to make agriculture more economical.

The program, opposed by the city, was abolished last year with the passage of a bill by Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-Escondido), clearing the way for the return of $600,000 to developers.

City planner Wayne insists that the newly proposed mitigation fee is different.

But Adam Birnbaum, the Coastal Commission’s staff planner for Carlsbad, said the questionable legality of the fee was one of two reasons that he opposes the idea.

“With the existence of the Bradley bill, which abolished the fee system the commission itself had set up in Carlsbad, the legality of the option is dubious,” Birnbaum said.

In addition, he said, the recommended use of the fees--for Batiquitos Lagoon and the city’s beaches, for example--represents “non-parallel litigation.”

“Basically, a developer would be (compensating) for his impacts on one resource through the enhancement of an entirely different resource,” Birnbaum said.