COMING EVENTS:
Proposed Grading Ordinance Regulations Affecting Agriculture
The San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors hearing on this proposal is tentatively scheduled for January 26, 2010 .
Proposed Grading Ordinance Regulations Affecting Agriculture:
This new ordinance goes way beyond what the County currently has on the regulatory books. We need to act now to keep this ordinance update from stopping agriculture in its tracks.
There are three levels to this ordinance, 1) ag. grading activities allowed without County Regulation, 2) ag activities requiring the filing of a County form and 3) activities requiring Alternative Review or a Permit.
General Issues:
50 Cubic Yards: The Draft Ordinance claims that the trigger to require regulation is 50 cubic yards but here is their definition of 50 cubic yards: 25 cubic yards, picked up is counted a second time when it is put down making a total of 50 cubic yards. This leaves you with only being able to go about 42.2 feet if you make a 1 foot cut to create a 16 foot wide road feet. After that you will be required to get a permit or go through alternative review process with the RCD/NRCS. This equates to letting you do earthwork of a little over 2 car lengths before going to the County.
Agricultural earthwork is not development: One issue is that agriculture is now, in many ways (i.e. 50 cubic yard trigger) being treated like development. Developers have significant earthwork projects very different from agricultural activities. Should agriculture have to file with the County if a new field is being prepared for crops? Should a minor ag. road a quarter of a mile from any stream have to get a County permit or use Alternative Review?
Ag. Commissioner’s “clearance” for a road or a pond: In addition to getting a permit or going through the Alternative Review” process, to build an ag. road or a pond under 1 acre foot, you need to get clearance from the Ag. Commissioner’s office. What are the special qualifications that the Ag. Commissioner’s office has that gives them the first right of rejection? To go through the Alternative Review process alone, you first go to the County for their OK, then get clearance from the Ag. Commissioner before even going to the RCD/NRCS. Who has the knowledge here? Certainly the RCD/NRCS has far more knowledge then the Ag. Commissioner’s. office.
Proposed Regulations
1) The Only Ag. Grading Activities Allowed Without County Regulations:
a) Moving less than the County’s definition of 50 cubic yards of earth Less than 20 cubic yards in a watercourse involving alteration of a drainage course;
b) Preparation of ongoing crop land involving more than 50 cubic yards where the land has been farmed within the last 5 years;
c) Vegetation removal on over ½ acre of land only if it has been grazed within the last 5 years;
d) Routine maintenance of existing legally established ag. roads;
e) Installation and maintenance of agricultural water pipelines and
f) Vegetation clearance strictly for fire safety using CalFire recommendations.
2) Ag. Activities Requiring Filing of a Form with the County Planning Department:
a) Preparation of new cropland or new pastures (a new spring or well?) on slopes less than 30 percent when moving over 50 cubic yards cumulatively and
b) Installation of small reservoirs for crops or livestock watering with less than 1-acre foot capacity which is built totally below grade and is not on a stream, lake or marsh.
3) Ag. Activities Requiring RCD/NRCS Alternative Review or a County Grading Permit.
a) All new agricultural roads moving over 50 cubic yards of earth (see County’s definition above) regardless of slope;
b) Reservoirs for crops or livestock watering with more then 1-acre foot capacity and/or built above the natural grade;
c) Over ½ acre of Vegetation removal (whether dirt is moved or not) for rangeland management where grazing has not occurred for over 5 years.
d) New orchards or vineyards, using hillside benches or other practices, on slopes over 30 percent.
e) Pond, reservoirs or dams catching run-off.
f) Streambank protection projects.
g) Agricultural grading requiring importation or exportation of fill material, except “soil fertility amendments”.
h) Trails for agricultural production support activities and recreation enhancement of the property.
i) Projects for soil, water quality, habitat or wildlife restoration, conservation or enhancement occurring outside of the channel of a stream.
The Alternative Review process may be preferable to a County Permit, but then again it could even be more difficult then a straight permit. The RCD/NRCS has the expertise to be able to walk you through the paperwork and the process, including getting the State and Federal clearances for projects, but normal agricultural practices should not be subject to review or permits.
You can log onto the County’s website for the Planning Commission Recommended Grading Ordinance at: www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/drainage/grad_storm_mgmt.htm
follow this link to Attachment C and farther down find the Draft Ag. Grading Form and Alternative Review Form
Contact your Supervisors:
1) Write (San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, Rm. D-430, County Government Center, San Luis Obispo, CA 93408)
2) E-mail (sbaker@co.slo.ca.us their secretary),
3) Speak with the Supervisors
4) Testify at the hearing on January 26, 2010.
WITHERS:
The reason you will seldom see a man riding bareback!!
JOHN C. HARRIS
Prominent California farmer-rancher John C. Harris has been elected as the new Chair of Pacific Legal Foundation's Board of Trustees.
Harris is CEO of Coalinga, California-based Harris Ranch, a family-owned enterprise since 1937, with farming, beef production, and horse breeding businesses that are among the world's leaders, employing more than 1,600 people. Harris Ranch Restaurant and Inn is a well-known landmark on Interstate 5, serving half-a-million customers yearly in an elegant and friendly oasis setting.
Pacific Legal Foundation is the oldest and most successful legal watchdog organization for limited government, property rights, free enterprise, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations. Headquartered in Sacramento, with regional offices in Florida and Washington state, and liaison offices in Alaska and Hawaii, PLF is a public interest organization that litigates in courts nationwide. Harris will serve a two-year term as PLF's board chair, succeeding the late Wade Hopping, a former Florida Supreme Court justice, who passed away in August.
A 1965 graduate of the University of California, Davis, Harris has served on numerous boards of major organizations, including, at present, the Race Track Chaplaincy of America, Western Growers Association, and California Cattlemen's Association. His many awards include the National Cattlemen's Association's Cattle Businessman of the Year; California's Livestock Man of the Year; and Agriculturist of the Year Award, presented by the California State Fair.
• Governor Schwarzenegger’s line item vetoes last summer included the suspension of the Williamson Act subvention funds for the 2009-10 fiscal year that began on July 1st.
• The loss of the proposed $27.7 million dollars may jeopardize this landmark conservation program that has proved to be effective in preserving and protecting farm and ranch land in California.
• If counties choose to exit the program by nonrenewing all of their Williamson Act contracts, landowners only option would be to protest the notice of nonrenewal. A written protest filed with counties would result in the maintenance of the Williamson Act property values until there is less than six years on the contract. At that time the property taxes on the farm or ranch land would escalate very quickly to the acquisition value under Proposition 13.
• The Williamson Act is unique because it combines a planning and zoning tool with a property tax policy and an open space policy. The result has been the retention of millions of acres of agricultural land in agricultural use and the improvement of the financial stability of state's agricultural economy.
• An eventual demise of the Williamson Act due to California’s ongoing budget crisis could result in a return to the land use policies of the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the loss of millions of acres of farm and ranch land, including watershed areas and wildlife habitat, to uncontrolled urban and suburban growth.
• In addition to the property tax relief, over half of California farmers and ranchers participate in the Williamson Act because they believe that farming and ranching is the highest and best use of their land, they have an emotional attachment to the land and they want to pass it on to the next generation as farm or ranch land. The loss of the Williamson Act’s property tax relief could jeopardize our next generations of California food producers.
• Williamson Act and its agricultural preserve status that it grants landowners also provides much needed certainty that they will be able to continue to farm or ranch land their land without the intrusion of incompatible non-agricultural uses.
• Farm Bureau’s goal as an organization is to help provide an environment where farmers and ranchers can continue to conduct their businesses. The Williamson Act has served California well by providing such an environment.
• The governor’s unilateral action poses a serious risk to continuation of all of these economic and environmental benefits.
