Assembly Panel Rejects Easing Coast Farm Policy

Legislation that would have made it easier for developers to build on thousands of acres of prime coastal farmland was defeated Monday in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

The bill, by Republican Assemblyman Bill Bradley of San Marcos, would have amended the state Coastal Act by changing the way the state calculates whether farming is economically viable on coastal land.

A finding that the land is no longer money-making in agriculture is often required before prime coastal farmland can be developed.

The bill was defeated, 5-7, with five Republicans voting in favor and seven Democrats opposed.

Bradley said the bill was needed because current law unfairly holds land in farming or, more often, forces landowners to let it lie fallow if it cannot be farmed for a profit. His legislation would have required that the cost of the farmland be considered along with the costs of operation in any test of economic viability.

“You have in effect almost confiscated the farmer’s right or an ability to market what he may need to market,” Bradley said. He said current rules are doing little to preserve farmland.

“In Carlsbad, mostly what used to be good flower land is now a weed patch because people are afraid to leave it in agriculture,” he said. “That’s all that process guarantees--that you might have some open space. I suppose some people say that’s preserving coastal something, but it is not preserving farmland.”

The bill was opposed by the Coastal Commission, the Sierra Club, and the Santa Cruz and Monterey County boards of supervisors. It was supported by the the California Farm Bureau and the California Assn. of Realtors.

Democrats on the committee questioned the need for the bill, with Assemblyman Mike Roos of Los Angeles saying he wondered if there really was a problem with the current rules.

“What’s broken that needs to be fixed?” Roos asked Bradley. “Where are the number of farmers who have gone belly up and have not been able to get rid of their land? . . . Is this just a theoretical thing that came to you as you were looking at weed patches that had once been flower beds?”

Roos and other committee members said they feared that the change Bradley wanted would lead to “wild speculation” on much of the 90,000 acres of farmland in the coastal zone. They and the bill’s other opponents said developers would have an incentive to pay high prices for the land because in doing so they would be making it uneconomical to farm, thus opening the door to development.