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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

July 29, 2006

Campaign over orderly growth measure taking shape

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Proponents say extending the county's orderly growth law for 30 years will help keep rural farmland from being paved over. They say similar versions of the growth law have been in effect since 1984 and have helped contain sprawl.

County Supervisor Duane Kromm boiled the pitch down to a few words: "Do you like what it's done to us for the last 22 years?"

But some people are raising objections, and not only property owners who can't wait for the restrictions to be lifted so they can try to build. Complaints include that the 30-year time-frame of the measure is too long and fear that some proposed changes in the law could actually hurt farming.

"I have to be very concerned we're not preserving our farmers to death," said Larry Clement at Tuesday's county Board of Supervisor meeting. Clement is a former farm adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension.

The orderly growth law says most farmland can be developed only if annexed by a city. Among the stated goals is to protect agriculture and stop rural pockets of development.
Voters passed the first version in 1984 and supervisors in 1994 extended it through 2010. Now backers want to make certain it stays in place.

Emotions are already running high. More than 100 people attended the board meeting Tuesday, when supervisors put the latest measure on the ballot. Thirty-four people spoke, bringing up issues that will no doubt be heard over and over during the upcoming campaign.

Proponents expressed concern that, without the law, sprawl development could take over.

"We could go the direction of Santa Clara, (where) there is no ag land left," Benicia City Councilwoman Elizabeth Patterson said.

Without orderly growth, each city would blur into the next and Solano County would look like the stretch of Interstate 80 between Richmond and Oakland, said Nicole Byrd of the Greenbelt Alliance.

But several farmers noted farming has become tough to do economically. They opposed the measure for a variety of reasons, among them having their land set aside for farming for three decades.

Tom Foon is a Suisun Valley fruit farmer who followed in his father's footstep. But his sons have no intention of following in his, Foon said.

"They can't afford to," Foon said. "The issue today is property rights. You can't farm, because it's a losing proposition."

Other farmers also noted that farming has become a tough way to earn a living. They blamed this on everything from national trade agreements to the closing of local processing plants.

County residents need to do more to help farmers, Kromm said Thursday, perhaps passing a tax to buy development rights on farmland from willing sellers.

"Lots of farming is under big economic stress pressures," Kromm said. "I really appreciate that. At the same time, does that mean you take farmland, pave it over and give up on it?"

Suisun Valley farmer Robert Hansen said he wants to keep farming and his son wants to be a farmer. But he opposes the orderly growth extension as written.

He and others noted the county is revising its General Plan over the next few years. He's hoping for changes in the county that can make farming profitable. Now comes the orderly growth measure as a complete surprise, even though the existing law is in effect through 2010, he said.

"Why did it have to come in 2006 and for 30 years, when it just takes the wind out of what we're doing?" Hansen said Thursday.

One reason is orderly growth advocates a few months ago looked for ways to support Measure H, a proposed transportation sales tax. They were afraid the planned road improvements could cause sprawl growth. Because the tax was to last 30 years, orderly growth advocates decided the extended growth law should cover the same time period.

Voters rejected the transportation tax in the June 6 election.

Another reason is the time period should roughly mirror the life of the new General Plan, when adopted, Kromm said. He expects the General Plan land use changes would go to voters when completed and would amend the orderly growth law.

He doesn't want to wait for the revised General Plan to make the extension. Kromm expressed concern the revisions won't be finished when the current orderly growth law expires in 2010. Environmental studies and lawsuits could cause delays. The extension is designed to avoid a vacuum where developers could build on rural land that otherwise would be off-limits.

But Supervisor John Silva said he expected the extension would have been for only a few years beyond 2010, to cover any delays in the General Plan update.

"I was not expecting to see 30 years," Silva said.

Supervisor Barbara Kondylis expressed thanks at the meeting that no one called the orderly growth law "anti-growth."

"We are growing and we are healthy," Kondylis said. "This orderly growth initiative is exactly what it says: Orderly. It directs where growth is supposed to go."

Under the orderly growth law, that place is the cities.

But Silva and Supervisor Mike Reagan said something else has happened since the original orderly growth laws got passed: Fairfield and Benicia adopted voter-approved growth boundaries that restrict their future growth.

The idea of orderly growth is that the cities grow like rings on a tree, Reagan said. But that concept is incompatible with cities that have imposed growth boundary lines, he said.

"Oh, by the way, the county will grow," Reagan said at the meeting. "You just can't say, 'No.' "

Supervisors had a choice on Tuesday. They could have passed the orderly growth law extension precisely as presented to them in the initiative petition or put it on the ballot.

Kromm and Kondylis wanted to pass it. But the board decided to put it on the Nov. 7 ballot.

"I think it's time we had a good, public airing," Silva said. "And it can have it in the electoral process."

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646 Ext. 232 or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

ORDERLY GROWTH 101

What the orderly growth measure extension does:

In most cases, farmland could be developed only if annexed by a city. The county could develop only a few rural areas, such as the Lambie industrial park.

The measure extends the existing orderly growth law through 2036. The existing law expires in 2010.

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