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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

January 14, 2002

Land use rivals seek common ground

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By Patricia Henley,
Assistant News Editor

In light of the rancor during the November 2000 election - when environmentalists' "Rural Heritage Initiative" was defeated by strong opposition from farming organizations - this current cooperation seems a bit like the feuding Hatfields and McCoys getting together to hire a consultant. But it's precisely because of the costly ballot battle that the two sides began talking about cooperative solutions.

The result is a $200,000 grant from The James Irvine Foundation to study land-use history and trends throughout Sonoma County.

The Sonoma County Farm Bureau, Greenbelt Alliance and other farming and environmental organizations put together a 12-member steering committee to apply for the grant. The committee will use the money to hire a consultant to determine exactly where growth has been and is occurring in Sonoma County and to identify any significant trends.

"The presumption is that both the farm bureau and Greenbelt Alliance want to retain agriculture in Sonoma County. The idea is that by looking at the history and the issues, maybe we can get closer together on how to do it," said Sonoma Valley resident John Blayney, a Rural Heritage Initiative supporter and one of the steering committee members representing Protect Land for Agriculture and Nature.

Serving on the steering committee is an "eye-opening" experience, said Sonoma rancher Ray Mulas of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau. Getting the two sides talking about what's really happening with growth in Sonoma County is important, he said.

"This is the 'fish or cut bait' time," Mulas said. "We've all agreed that we're going to find out, officially, what we do have (in terms of growth in Sonoma County), not what I think we have or what you think we have, but what we really have ... and what our solutions could be.

" This isn't the first time agricultural and environmental representatives have worked together. Adopted by the Board of Supervisors in February 2000, the Sonoma County Vineyard Erosion Control Ordinance was hashed out during more than two years of negotiations between grape growers and environmentalists.

However, after the ordinance was in place, several members of the environmental community complained that it didn't go far enough in controlling vineyard development or in protecting hillside and riparian habitat.

Concerned about sprawl and loss of open space, Greenbelt Alliance and other environmental groups moved quickly to put Measure I on the November 2000 ballot.

Called the "Rural Heritage Initiative" by its supporters, Measure I would have frozen the housing density in the county's current general plan for four types of agriculturally-zoned property. Effective for 30 years, the freeze would have affected more than two-thirds of the land in Sonoma County.

Outraged that they hadn't been included in the development of the ballot initiative and worried about adding more land-use restrictions on agricultural properties, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and related organizations came out with both barrels blazing in opposition.

Supporters of Measure I spent more than $370,000 to convince Sonoma County residents to support what they termed their "anti-sprawl" measure. Opponents spent close to $520,000 in opposition.

Measure I went down in defeat, with a 57.4 percent "no" vote.

"The election was very costly and didn't solve any problems," Mulas said. "It protected agriculture by defeating the issue. It kept them from imposing more restrictions on us, which wouldn't have been the answer.

" Immediately after the election, leaders from both sides of the issue started talking about how to work together instead of in opposition.

"We're coming almost to an evolution in understanding that that is an old way to (deal with issues), through confrontation. Let's take a new approach and do it through communication and conversation," said Dee Swanhuyser of the Greenbelt Alliance.

Now the agriculturists and the environmentalists have landed the $200,000 grant from The James Irvine Foundation, a private, nonprofit group working to enhance the social, economic and physical quality of life throughout California.

The Sonoma County Community Foundation will handle the fiscal aspects of coordinating the grant, while the steering committee will select and hire the consultant and review the findings.

Steering committee members include: Tom Steinbach, Jake MacKenzie and Swanhuyser of the Greenbelt Alliance; Eric Koenigshofer, Lex McCorvey, John Bucher and Mulas of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau; Peter Ashcroft, George Davis and Blayney of Protect Land for Agriculture and Nature; Nick Frey of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association; and Bob Anderson of the United Wine Growers. Steinbach and Koenigshofer will be co-chairmen of the committee.

Several steering committee members said the timing is excellent because the county is in the first stages of revising its General Plan, which is a long-range statement of the goals, objectives and policies that guide decisions on growth, development and use of resources in unincorporated areas of Sonoma County.

The land-use study will be completed before the General Plan update is final and could help influence future policies. Several steering committee members also said they hope the land-use study might lead to a jointly-sponsored ballot measure that both sides could support.

However, everyone involved stressed that the level of cooperation between the various groups is new and still uncertain. Many say the steering committee meetings have been extremely cordial - but mostly the sessions have focused on getting the grant, not on hashing out the issues.

Looking for common ground is the only way to make any progress, said Frey of the Sonoma County Grape Growers. However, there are no guarantees of success.

"When you have disagreements, it's because you have different assumptions about the underlying facts or even different sets of facts," Frey said. "This (land-use study) is a way to put us on a common foundation, to see where we agree. And if we disagree, at least it will be because we've reached a different conclusion from the same set of facts."

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