Preservation of Farmland Crops Up as Major Issue

The last of seven “town hall” meetings on preserving Ventura County’s farmland has yet to take place, but political leaders already are working on proposals addressing what is shaping up to be to be the hottest local issue of 1998.

The Agriculture Policy Working Group, a 23-member panel of politicians, planners, farming advocates and building-industry representatives, will hold its final public meeting in Ojai on Feb. 17.

The group will then convene Feb. 27 to hammer out recommendations on ways to save the county’s agricultural base.

“This group didn’t work as hard as it has, as long as it has, for its findings to be just filed away,” said Dee Zinke of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, a member of the group.

“I think there will certainly be some changes in policies, not only having to do with land use, but other things that affect the agricultural industry.”

Two of the three county supervisors who formed the group are busy on separate plans to tackle farmland preservation--a cause lauded by residents and farmers, but which has eluded a solution both groups will accept.

Supervisor John K. Flynn said he plans to propose a half-cent or quarter-cent sales tax increase to protect farmland from urban sprawl. With the additional revenue, the county would buy development rights from farmers, or simply purchase their land and place it in an agricultural trust.

Such a measure would require approval from two-thirds of county voters.

Meanwhile, Supervisor Kathy Long said she is weighing a proposal to keep the county’s cities from growing together by formulating a new set of greenbelt agreements that would be off-limits to development.

Current greenbelts exist through little more than handshake agreements between city and county officials. The only way to make them and any new agreements legally binding may be to obtain voter approval, Long said.

With the farmland preservation group Save Open-space and Agricultural Resources seeking its own countywide ballot measure, which would give the power to rezone farmland to the voters instead of politicians, voters this fall could face a number of choices.

Whatever they decide, many are alarmed at the development trends that allowed them a home here in the first place. Since 1950, the county’s population has quintupled to more than 717,000. Both old-timers and newcomers express concern over increasing congestion and decreasing farmland, pointing to Orange County and the San Fernando Valley as examples to avoid.

Roughly 112,000 acres of farmland remain in Ventura County. With the construction industry gaining momentum in an improving economy, people seeking preservation worry that the pace of growth will accelerate.

Flynn met with various county officials last week to discuss his sales tax proposal, which would be modeled after one in Sonoma County. He said he will probably outline his proposal at the working group’s final meeting.

“One unifying aspect of these meetings I picked up on is that people support some kind of a tax measure that will help put the land into preserve, or perhaps buy the development rights from landowners and keep it in agriculture,” Flynn said.

“I’m going to look carefully at the Sonoma measure doing this, and I hope I have some people supporting me.”

In 1990, Sonoma County residents voted for a higher sales tax to fund a special district that buys farmland or development rights from wineries and other landowners and turns them over to park districts or farmland trusts. The district collects about $10 million yearly.

A Los Angeles Times Poll last year found that half of Ventura County residents would support a sales tax hike to buy development rights from farmers--far short of the two-thirds majority vote that would be required. A poll by a University of California farmland trust last year came up with similar findings. Still, with all the recent talk about new preservation measures, Flynn believes the time is right for a sales tax boost. A quarter-cent increase would generate about $20 million a year, Flynn said.

“If a poll were to be done now, I think it would find support to do this,” he said. “In both the public and political arenas, I believe there is a lot of interest in doing something. I really think it would pass.”

In addition to its tax increase, Sonoma County has established greenbelt areas between cities.

It will probably take a similar mix of tactics to control sprawl here, Long said. She and Supervisor Frank Schillo have expressed interest in strengthening greenbelt agreements between cities and the county and possibly establishing new ones.

Judging from the working group meetings, there is strong public support for putting more teeth in greenbelt agreements, Long said.

“The strategies I feel have been expressed strongest are a desire for urban boundaries and a desire to codify greenbelts,” Long said. “I think there has also been a strong interest in helping out the farmers financially. And I think the farmers want people to put their money where their mouth is.”

In conjunction with its drive for a county requirement that voters approve the rezoning of agricultural land, SOAR has urged officials in seven of the county’s 10 cities to adopt stringent boundary measures.

Ventura and Thousand Oaks already have such laws on the books. SOAR leaders have yet to meet with Moorpark officials.

So far, the effort has been positively received in Oxnard, Camarillo and Simi Valley, according to SOAR organizer Richard Francis. Part of the reason, he acknowledged, is that he has been willing to compromise on exact boundary lines in order to secure support.

SOAR took a more rigid stance when campaigning for a farmland preservation measure in Ventura, he said. Voters approved the measure in 1996, and it has withstood all legal challenges to date.

“Because I have not been as hard as I was on my own city, we have been having success,” said Francis, a former Ventura mayor. “If [a particular piece of land] is not critical to the overall goal we are pursuing, we are not going to quibble.”

Francis said he does not mind sharing a ballot with a sales tax increase or any other preservation proposal. But he sees such solutions as flawed.

If public money is to be used for farmland, he asked, then who will choose what land should be bought? And if farmers are to be compensated for their rights, is that fair to other landowners who must live with restrictive zoning policies?

Whatever solutions emerge from the working group figure to be varied, addressing not only land preservation but also incentives to keep landowners in agriculture.