Coalition Calls for Need to Preserve County Farmland

Seeking to replace the old politics of division with new alliances, farmers, builders, environmentalists and government officials said Friday that it is time to draft a plan for Ventura County’s future that preserves farmland while allowing for growth within permanent city boundaries.

Participants in a one-day workshop titled “Toward a More Livable Community” at the Oxnard Hilton Hotel endorsed the need to maintain agriculture as a powerful local industry by refusing to pave over the greenbelts that still separate local cities--and which distinguish this county from its crowded neighbors to the south.

Carol Whiteside, the keynote speaker and director of intergovernmental affairs for Gov. Pete Wilson, said that in recent years a consensus has emerged among California officials that it is important to protect significant natural resources.

“And rising to the top of the list is the conservation of farmland,” said Whiteside, former mayor of Modesto, a fast-growing city that was among the first in the San Joaquin Valley to respond to urban encroachment into prime farmland.

California is the food basket of the nation and the world, she noted. And Ventura County is one of the state’s principal agricultural counties. But she praised the growth policies here, saying that countywide guidelines in place since 1969 generally have kept growth inside city limits.

“I honestly go around the state all the time and say, ‘Just look at Ventura County. They know what they’re doing,’ ” she said.

Nonetheless, about 1,000 acres of irrigated farmland is lost each year in this county. And workshop speakers--representing interests as diverse as the farm bureau, the American Farmland Trust and the building industry--said a challenge now is to find common ground that will allow them to act together while saving some of the world’s richest, most productive soil.

About 105,000 irrigated farm acres still remain in the county.

“There are new alliances that are emerging in the conservation movement,” said Kari Smith, policy director at the Greenbelt Alliance in the San Francisco Bay Area. “There are a number of reasons farmers might want to work with the [Greenbelt] alliance to stem suburban sprawl.” For example, both environmentalists and farmers support a budding movement where agricultural land trusts buy farmers’ rights to develop cropland.

Trusts in Marin and Sonoma counties alone have purchased development rights to nearly 50,000 farm acres, and the Sonoma County effort is supported by a voter-approved sales tax that will provide about $200 million over the next 20 years. And beginning this year, the California Resources Department is providing $3 million for the same purpose.

In Fresno, a coalition comprised of the farm bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and the building industry recently drafted a statement of principles that supported farmland preservation but also growth in areas that do not have fertile soil.

A similar coalition aimed at conserving the natural resources of the Central Valley has also been formed, said Erik Vink of the American Farmland Trust. “This is the type of consensus building effort that can be the model,” he told participants.

Along the same vein, the Ventura County Farm Bureau two weeks ago changed its land-use policy to call for preservation of farmlands in six greenbelts that cover 83,000 local acres.

*

The farm bureau also called for creation of a large greenbelt east of Fillmore, and declared that city limits should be just that. Cities should put teeth into their current nonbinding greenbelt agreements, farmers concluded.

Rex Laird, executive director of the local 1,700-member farm bureau, told participants that the policy change came after a successful 1995 Ventura ballot measure pointed out a contradiction in the farmers’ position. Farmers said they wanted to preserve farmland but also opposed efforts to take away their right to develop that land.

The farm bureau no longer defends farmers’ rights to develop within greenbelts.

At the same time, the farm bureau is calling for local governments to endorse a farmers’ bill of rights that would support the industry when nearby homeowners complain about farm noise, odors and dust.

Such a measure will be presented to the county Board of Supervisors next month, Laird said.

Participants representing a variety of interests also said Friday that they see the 1990s as a slow-growth window of opportunity to redirect Ventura County’s inevitable growth back into the cities and away from cropland.

“In Ventura County some of the most productive farmland in the world is also some of the most threatened,” said Peter Brand, head of the farmland preservation effort for the state Coastal Conservancy.

Higher-density development within city limits--increasing the number of houses per acre from an average of about seven to 10 1/2--would preserve farmland and save cities money, Brand said. That is because low-density housing does not produce enough local tax to pay for city services, he said.

*

A 1996 study of Ventura County agriculture found that if current housing development patterns continue, about 10,000 acres of farmland would be paved over by 2010 to provide homes to 75,000 new residents in six local cities adjacent to farmland, Brand said.

But about 4,200 of those acres could be saved by building more homes on each acre, he said. That would also save about $80 million in lost farm production and 1,500 farm jobs. The increased housing density would also save those cities about $10 million a year in service costs, allowing residential communities to pay for themselves, he said.

It was left to the building industry’s Dee Zinke to bring the discussion of new alliances and greater housing densities back to reality. For example, the new environmental-builders alliance in Fresno failed in its first attempt to increase the number of homes per acre, because local elected officials were not ready for such a change, she said.

“We need to identify who will support these policies,” she said. “I’m trying to elicit support and help.”

Only a handful of local elected officials attended the workshop, sponsored by the Ventura Council of Governments.

Linda Parks, a councilwoman in Thousand Oaks, said she can take lessons back to the Conejo Valley. She said the proposed Woodbridge housing project in a greenbelt between Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley flies in the face of open space preservation.

“The greenbelts are critical to this county,” she said.