Farmland Preservation

Sammamish Valley APD Zoning: Comment
Sammamish Valley APD Zoning: HHA Rezone Comments
Sammamish Valley APD Zoning: HHA Rezone Rebuttal

(the Muller Farm swap ordinance was abandoned in 2006)

Muller Farm/60 Acres Soccer: Swap Status
Muller Farm/60 Acres Soccer: HHA Position Statement

SAMMAMISH VALLEY AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION DISTRICT

The Sammamish Valley is physically, legally and philosophically on the frontier between urban and rural development. In an era when development so frequently runs roughshod over our nation’s landscape and communities, the valley compliments the vision of a far-sighted citizenry who, decades ago, saw the oncoming tide of thoughtless sprawl. They believed that they could learn from history and not repeat others’ mistakes. Accordingly, they left us this legacy of long-term land use planning, as well as the tools to carry it through. It is now up to us to determine what legacy we will leave. Few communities around the nation have what we have in this respect. It is our responsibility to not squander it.

The 1979 Farmland Preservation Bond Program was the first impetus to protect dwindling farmland in King county. It was approved by the citizens of King County, who voted to tax themselves in order to protect farmland from non-agricultural development. It has been followed by provisions in the state GMA, embodied in our county Comprehensive Plan in the form of APDs.

The following are a selection of some of the points to be made in defining our perspectives on agriculture in the Sammamish Valley. While some of this is focused locally, most of it is applicable on a state-wide basis.

Agriculture is thriving in the valley.

- Virtually all farmland in the APD is in active agricultural use, except where the land is owned by speculators who disallow it. The Muller property is an example of a farm that was active until it was purchased by a soccer club, which has since disallowed any farming activities.
- Buyers and tenants are lined up to farm whenever an opportunity presents itsself. One prominant example is the South 47 Farm, which laid fallow for decades while the previous owners unsuccessfully attempted to change its designation from agriculture to commercial. It was recently purchased from them by a farming group and has been restored to active agriculture.

The farmland in the Sammamish Valley contains some of the richest soils in our state.

- Combined with the climate and proximity to markets, the Sammamish Valley is an excellent location for agricultural business.
- Across the USA and the world, the richest agricultural land is tends to be lost to urbanization in spite of growing population and demand for food.

Our communities benefit from having local farm products and activities in our midst.

- Designated agricultural land comprises only 3% of the land area in King County.
- There is a growing demand for fresh and organically grown food on our tables.
- Local farms provide our citizens educational and first hand experience opportunities.
- Ag lands contribute to a refreshing green belt effect bordering our urban/rural boundaries.
- Loss of agriculture near urban areas has a triggering effect for high density development. Once land is converted to non-ag use, including sports fields, it is lost to ag uses forever.

Agricultural businesses require and deserve long-term stability in land use designations.

- Successful farming requires much more than simply plowing some dirt and throwing out some seeds. Like most industries, it requires considerable investment of time, money and organization over many years to be successful.
- Farmers will be disinclined to make these investments while threatened by the specter of changes in land use designations that would render their business unviable.

Supporting agricultural use requires policies that promote land sale and tax valuations which are consistent with the economics of agricultural business.

- If our APD lands are designated for any uses other than agriculture, including sports facilities, their prices will be much higher than can be supported by agriculture.
- The relatively low price for land within the APDs is a primary reason they have been targeted by the soccer clubs.

HHA Rezone Comment Letter to King County

September 23, 2005

Via E-Mail and Facsimile

King County DDES

900 Oaksdale SW

Renton, WA 98055-1219

Re: DNS issued for proposed amendments to the King County Comprehensive Plan to comply with Growth Management Hearings Board order relating to the Sammamish Valley Agricultural Production District (APD).

Attention: Paul Reitenbach

The Growth Management Hearings Board has issued an order stating that rural zoned properties may not be included in the Sammamish Valley APD. The Hollywood Hill Association (HHA) supports the comprehensive plan amendments proposed by DDES in response to the Board’s order, subject to certain qualifications discussed in this comment letter. The proposed amendments would redesignate the majority of the RA zoned properties in the Sammamish Valley APD to A-10 and keep them in the APD.

The Growth Management Hearings Board addressed the appropriate manner of dealing with rural zoned properties currently included within the Sammamish Valley APD in its decision. The Board stated at page 36 of its opinion:

Petitioner requests the Board to direct the County to cure the inconsistency by removing rural designated lands from the Sammamish APD. PHB, at 13. While the Board agrees the County should resolve the inconsistency inherent in the designation of the area as both agricultural resource land and rural, determination of the specific redesignations are a matter for the County to decide in accordance with the provisions of the GMA. Past Board decisions have included the following conclusions: RCW 36.70A.020(8), .060, and .170, when read together, create an agricultural conservation imperative that imposes an affirmative duty on local governments to designate and conserve agricultural lands to assure the maintenance and enhancement of the agricultural resource industry.46; And The GMA’s provisions for the conservation of natural resource lands, including agricultural lands, constitutes one of the Act’s most important and directive mandates.47 [Emphasis in original text.]

Conclusion

The dual designation of the area as APD and Rural Residential does not comply with the GMA provision that rural areas not include agricultural resource lands. The designation of the area as agricultural resource (APD) on the Agricultural and Forest Resource Map is inconsistent with the designation of the area as Rural on the Land Use Map, all as contained in the King County Comprehensive Plan adopted by Ordinance 15028. The dual designation does not comply with the consistency requirements of the RCW36.70A.070. The County will be directed to correct the inconsistency caused by the dual designation in compliance with the provisions of the GMA.

As the Board stated, the Council must respond to the Board’s order by implementing the requirements of GMA, one of the most important being the “agricultural conservation imperative that imposes an affirmative duty on local governments to designate and conserve agricultural lands to assure the maintenance and enhancement of the agricultural resource industry.”

The County in setting the original boundaries of the Sammamish Valley APD made a decision that the properties included within the APD were necessary to preserve and protect the scarce and valuable agricultural lands still remaining in King County. The HHA believes that on both legal and technical grounds the option of redesignating all RA zoned properties within the APD to A-10 and continuing the status quo of grandfathering the few non-conforming uses would most appropriately implement the GMA requirement to preserve agricultural lands. This is the option supported by the Agriculture Commission. The HHA also believes that any decision to remove all RA zoned properties from the APD would violate GMA and its requirement to preserve and protect agricultural resource lands.

The HHA understands the rationale behind the DDES proposal. The properties proposed for rezone to A-10 are clearly necessary to the preservation of the Sammamish Valley agricultural lands. The DDES proposal will remove only those properties from the APD where it is clear that agriculture is unlikely to become reestablished due to permanent structures that are incompatible with agricultural activities. This proposal would remove approximately 33 of the 129 acres identified as having RA zoning from the APD. While this constitutes a significant amount of acreage, the proposal attempts to minimize the potential impact on Sammamish Valley agriculture by maintaining an area of land with agricultural zoning sufficient in size to protect the viability of the resource, which is thriving due in part to the County’s continued efforts to protect and promote farming.

A problematic element of the proposal is the removal of acreage from the APD without replacement land, as required by current comprehensive plan policies. This is particularly distressing in light of contiguous properties which might have served as replacement acreage, had the possibility been explored. We have no evidence that this possibility was seriously considered.

However, in light of the overall benefits of the proposal, the Hollywood Hill Association will support it. This support is strongly contingent on rezoning all properties identified in the proposal totaling 96.05 acres to A-10 and keeping them within the Sammamish Valley APD, as well as the maintenance of the Urban Growth Boundary in its present location. We have been informed that there are no other RA zoned properties in the other King County APDs. Our support is also contingent on this information being accurate.

Thank you for your consideration of our comments.

Respectfully,

Michael Tanksley

President

Hollywood Hill Association

HHA Rezone Rebuttal Letter to King County

November 3, 2005

Via E-Mail

King County DDES

900 Oaksdale SW

Renton, WA 98055-1219

Re: Ordinance 2005-0385

Attn: Paul Reitenbach

In addition to our previously submitted positions in support of the referenced ordinance, we would like to rebut several points that have been made in opposition to the ordinance. You may reference the maps on pages 22 and 24 of the September 7 staff report concerning this ordinance.

Councilmember Lambert has made much to do about the existence of urban development just north of the properties in question, as shown on the maps referenced above. It is her contention that, because there are urban uses so close at hand, the properties in question are somehow less appropriate for agriculture. Indeed, there have been suggestions that the Urban Growth Boundary should be moved to include some of these rural areas.

The reality on the ground is that all three properties bordering the south side of NE 171^st Street that are within the APD are actively engaged in agricultural activities. This includes the Brown and the Friends of the Market properties, which are subjects of this ordinance. The third property is Zante’s Farm. There are no conflicts between these urban and rural uses in this area and many find that they compliment each other.

Furthermore, the Urban/Rural line runs east-west along NE 171^st Street. The properties with urban development on them referred to by Councilmember Lambert are north of that line and within the urban growth boundary. It is appropriate and expected that urban development occur on the urban side of the line.

If we were to accept the existence of urban development adjacent to the Urban/Rural line as a reason to allow urban development in the rural areas, then a domino effect would occur and urban sprawl would march across our rural areas. This is precisely what we strive to avoid with our management of growth via the GMA.

Another criticism of the ordinance suggested that future expansion of the church would be hampered if the 3 parcels west of the church were rezoned and maintained within the APD, as proposed by the ordinance. This is a false notion as the church has already testified that they have maximized the development potential of the site and used those three parcels to meet the associated code requirements. This proposed rezoning would not change that equation.

A question was raised by Council Member Hammond at the October 31^st public hearing as to why property which was not currently farmed and which the property owner had no intention of farming should be zoned Agricultural. (Please note as discussed above that the Brown property is currently used for farm activities.) This very issue was addressed by the State Supreme Court in the 1998 Benaroya decision. The court found that the refusal of a landowner to conduct agricultural activities on designated agricultural resource land is not sufficient reason to remove its designation as resource land.

In that decision the Supreme Court overturned a Growth Management Hearings Board decision that property in the City of Redmond portion of the Sammamish Valley could not be zoned Agricultural because the property had not been farmed in many years and the current owners had no intention of ever farming it. The following are quotes from that opinion:

The City, a suburban city located in the Sammamish Valley between Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish, has grown rapidly in recent decades and is Washington's fourteenth largest city. The Sammamish Valley is an area of great beauty. The Sammamish River meanders through the Valley, the soils of which are lush and fertile, and denominated "prime agricultural soils" by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. King County's agricultural lands preservation effort in the 1970's resulted in the purchase of development rights in significant portions of the Valley's acreage. Urban growth, however, has encroached upon the Valley and the agricultural activities within it. At present, approximately 47 percent of the Valley is in urban/ commercial use, 33 percent is agricultural, and about 20 percent of the land lies fallow.

The GMA set aside special land it refers to as "natural resource lands," which include agricultural, forest, and mineral resource lands. "Natural resource lands are protected not for the sake of their ecological role but to ensure the viability of the resource-based industries that depend on them. Allowing conversion of resource lands to other uses or allowing incompatible uses nearby impairs the viability of the resource industry." Richard L. Settle & Charles G. Gavigan, The Growth Management Revolution in Washington: Past, Present, and Future, 16 U. PUGET SOUND L. REV. 867, 907 (1993).

. . . if land owner intent were the controlling factor, local jurisdictions would be powerless to preserve natural resource lands. Presumably, in the case of agricultural land, it will always be financially more lucrative to develop such land for uses more intense than agriculture. Although some owners of agricultural land may wish to preserve it as such for personal reasons, most, like Benaroya and Cosmos, will seek to develop their land to maximize their return. If the designation of such land as agricultural depends on the intent of the land owner as to how he or she wishes to use it, the GMA is powerless to prevent the loss of natural resource land. All a land speculator would have to do is buy agricultural land, take it out of production, and ask the controlling jurisdiction to amend its comprehensive plan to remove the "agricultural land" designation. Under the Board's interpretation, the controlling jurisdiction would have no choice but to do so, because the land is no longer being used for agricultural purposes.

A cardinal rule of statutory construction is to give effect to legislative intent. Timberline Air Serv., Inc. v. Bell Helicopter-Textron, Inc., 125 Wn.2d 305, 312. 884 P.2d 920 (1994). A stated legislative intent of the GMA is to maintain and enhance agricultural land. RCW 36.70A.020(8). One cannot credibly maintain that interpreting the definition of "agricultural land" in a way that allows land owners to control its designation gives effect to the Legislature's intent to maintain, enhance, and conserve such land. Indeed, the Board's interpretation is likely to have exactly the opposite effect. We decline to interpret the GMA definition in a way that vitiates the stated intent of the statute.

. . . the GMA changed the normal course. The GMA sought to control and regulate growth, and specifically emphasized the protection of natural resource lands, including agricultural land. The Legislature hoped to preserve agricultural land near our urban centers so that freshly grown food would be readily available to urban residents and the next generation could see food production and be disabused of the notion that food grows on supermarket shelves.

The Board's interpretation of the GMA definition of "agricultural land" is wrong. Allowing current use or land owner intent to control the definition of "agricultural land" would frustrate the stated purpose of the GMA to maintain and enhance natural resource lands. If the Legislature wanted current use or land owner intent to control, it would have said so explicitly. It has not.

In closing, it is important to keep in mind that these farmlands provide a cornerstone in our efforts to ward off LA style sprawl and keep our communities, both urban and rural, livable as we absorb the growth that continues to occur in our beautiful region. This ordinance strikes a balance between protecting our viable farmlands and meeting the mandate of the GMHB on this issue.

We urge the council to adopt this ordinance without amendment.

Thank you for your attention to these comments.