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Posted on 06/17/2003 12:41:15 AM PDT by farmfriend
Opposition Swamps Sweeping Farmland Bill
A barrage of final-hour opposition overcame the most sweeping California farmland protection bill in a generation, scuttling it on the brink of its first hearing.
Builders, real estate agents and California cities mounted vigorous opposition in recent days to SB-898l by state Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, that would have created some of the nation’s toughest barriers to growth on millions of acres of the state’s best farmland.
California reportedly paves over 50,000 acres of irrigated farmland yearly. The bill called for new growth restrictions on 8.1 million acres until 2015, and portrayed farmland preservation as too important to leave to cities and counties alone. The bill would have required commercial or residential development on prime irrigated farmland to prove itself essential to economic development and prove it didn’t induce more growth on nearby farmland. It also required no fewer than six homes per acre and made cities preserve four acres of farmland elsewhere for every acre rezoned for development.
In early May, the bill was stripped down to four paragraphs stating simply the Legislature’s intent to provide long-term protection for California’s productive lands.
Opponents to the original bill included the Farm Bureau, which said the bill was “fatally flawed” as the courts would likely strike down a provision requiring cities and counties to preserve farmland elsewhere in California for every acre of the state’s best farmland they rezone.
The bill was reportedly largely drafted by the American Farmland Trust and a Sacramento-area land developer, AKT Development. One of the provisions of the bill would have put a strict limit on the development of irrigated farmland, while freely allowing it on rolling pasture and grazing land. Some of the opposition to the bill stemmed from the fact that AKT owned thousands of acres of such foothill grazing land in four counties.
Co-sponsor of the bill was Senator Mike Machado, who promised to convene a new, broader support coalition.
Hey Carry_Okie, didn't you right a book about this?
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
Shocked I tell ya!
That's the modus operendi of late. If you want to see collusion between large land owners, developers and envirals come visit us sometime.
It's a huge real estate invesment enterprise, which they disguise as "smart growth", environmental protection or whatever else you want to hang on it.
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Someone has come up with a system that would work to preserve farmland from both development and government bureaucracy. See the link I have in post #1.
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