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The effectiveness of zoning for agricultural lands protection: a case study from Cache County, Utah
45
Landscape and Urban Planning, 13 (1986) 45-54 Elsevier Science
Publishers
B.V., Amsterdam
- Printed
in The Netherlands
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ZONING FOR AGRICULTURAL LANDS PROI’ECTION: A CASE STUDY FROM CACHE COUNTY, UTAH LEE NELLIS Urban and Regional Planning, Eastern WaShington University, Cheney, WA 99004 (U.S.A.)
MARTIN N. MACA Division of Life Sciences, Northwest Wyoming Community College, Powell, WY 84325 (U.S.A.) (Accepted
for publication
13 August
1985)
ABSTRACT Nellis, L. and Maca, M.N., 1986. The effectiveness Utah. Landscape Urban Plann., 13: 45-54.
of zoning
for agricultural
lands protection:
a case study
from Cache County,
Zoning is the method local governments in the United States most frequently use to protect agricultural lands from conversion to other uses, but the actual effectiveness of zoning as an agricultural lands protection tool has rarely been evaluated. In this article, we describe the efforts of a Utah County to discourage the conversion of cropland to other uses with performance standards amended into its zoning ordinance in 1978. The extent of cropland conversion during the fist 4 years of the implementation of the amendments is documented, how the conversions were permitted is explained, and the reasons given for permitting them are analyzed. After showing that the County has not been successful in achieving its agricultural lands protection goal, we conclude with a discussion of institutional and political barriers to successful agricultural land protection programs and recommendations for the more effective use of zoning to protect agricultural lands.
INTRODUCTION
including zoning. Gustafson et al. (1982) have made an “interim assessment” of the effectiveness of exclusive farm-use zoning in Oregon’s Willamette Valley - where State law requires local governments to include agricultural lands policies in their comprehensive plans, and studies of “. . . . how agricultural zones work in practice”, in 10 communities, were conducted during the National Agricultural Lands Study (Coughlin et al., 1981). In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of zoning ordinance provisions adopted by Cache County, Utah, in limiting the conver-
“Of all the methods that local governments use to save farmland, zoning is the most common . . Yet, the history of agricultural zoning is so short that many people are not familiar with its elements. We have insufficient experience with it to let us state with certainty that agricultural zoning can be expected to save farmland.” William Toner (Coughlin et al., 1981, p. 104)
Evaluations of the effectiveness of zoning as an agricultural land protection tool are rare. Shirvani and MacLeod (1985) have recently published an assessment of farmlands preservation techniques used in New York, 0169-2046/86/$03.50
0 1986 Elsevier Science
Publishers
B.V.
46
sion of cropland to other uses. Our study covers 4 years of implementation experience and should be of value to planners, educators and community officials interested in agricultural lands protection because: (1) Cache County’s ordinance is based on policy statements typical of those found in comprehensive plans adopted by rural jurisdictions throughout the U.S.A.; (2) the section of the County’s zoning ordinance governing land-use changes in the Agricultural Zoning District are (despite the problems discussed below) fairly representative of the performance zoning and permit system approaches that have been recommended as potentially appropriate ways to implement plans in rural areas (Wickersham, 198 1; Nellis, 1984); (3) the performance standards used to guide decisions on land-use changes in the County’s Agricultural Zoning District are embodied in a “Numerical Evaluation System” somewhat similar to LESA, the Land Evaluation and Site Assessment system that has been incorporated into the rules adopted for administration of the Federal Farmland Policy Act (Wright et al., 1983; United States Department of Agriculture, 1984); (4) the County’s approach has survived a serious legal challenge (Utah Supreme Court, 1981) - a definite indication that it merits consideration by other communities.
UTAH
BACKGROUND:CACHECOUNTY Cache County is located in northeastern Utah (see Fig. 1). The county seat, Logan, has a population of about 27 000. The remainder of the County’s approximately 57 000 residents live in several smaller cities and the unincorporated rural areas. The local economy is based on education, agriculture and light industry. Utah State University, Utah’s land grant college, is the County’s largest employer. Like the University, much of the local industry, in which cheese-making and
Fig. 1. The location
of Cache County,
Utah.
meat packing are prominent, is related to agriculture. Cache County covers 751 360 acres, most of which is mountain and range land. The County’s cropland base includes only about 19 1 000 acres - 103 468 of which is irrigated and 87 243 dry-farmed. 51 890 acres of the irrigated lands are classified as prime farmland, and an additional 30 240 acres of irri-
gated and 29 5 10 acres of non-irrigated lands are classified as farmlands of state-wide importance (Southard, 1979). BACKGROUND:CACHECOUNTY PLANNING AND LAND USE CONTROLS In October 1977, Cache County up-dated its comprehensive plan with the adoption of a policy plan. A major goal adopted in the policy plan was to “maintain prime farmlands for present and future generations as a valuable natural resource” (Cache County Planning Commission Staff, 1977, p. 49). In the following July, the County adopted zoning ordinance amendments to implement the policy plan. The most significant of those amendments were intended to discourage the development of farmland for non-farm use by changing the way rural residential development was regulated. Before the 1978 amendments, non-farm residences on lots of 10 or more acres were uses-by-right in the Agricultural Zoning District, but as other jurisdictions have also learned (Steiner, 1980; Coughlin et al., 1981; Healy and Short, 1981), a large minimum lot-size actually promoted the conversion of cropland to non-farm use. Purchase of 10 acres was not expensive enough to discourage rural “ranchette” development, and so the large minimum lot-size tended to disperse rural residences throughout farming areas, leaving cumulatively large tracts of productive land in the ownership of people whose interest was not, at least primarily, in farming it. In recognition of this problem, the amendments reduced the minimum lot-size to 0.5 acres, but required that a conditional use permit (CUP) be obtained for new non-farm residences. The County Planning Commission would evaluate applications for the CUP’s on a case-by-case basis, guided by a set of performance standards known as the Numerical Evaluation System (NES). The NES, as its name implies, makes use of
numbers - positive point “scores” are assigned for the desirable features of a CUP application; negative points for its undesirable features. Negative point assignments disresidential development on good courage cropland soils. Positive scores encourage the location of residences in areas already provided with adequate road access and other public services. A complete description of the NES is found in an article by County Planning Director, Ken Sizemore (1983). When the County’s denial of a CUP was reviewed by the Utah Supreme Court in 1981, the NES was found to be an adequate basis for local landuse decisions (Utah Supreme Court, 198 1). LAND CONVERSION
STATISTICS
Awareness of the limited amount of cropland available in Cache County and of the importance of agriculture in its economy led to concern about the future of the local land base - a concern that was reflected in the 1977 policy plan and the subsequent zoning ordinance amendments. How well those amendments translated policy into action is best assessed by describing the conversion of cropland to non-farm use between July 1978 and July 1982; the first 4 years of their implementation. Conversions took place in one of three ways: (1) through annexation of cropland into incorporated cities, where land-use changes are not reviewed by the County; (2) through issuance of a CUP, with the proposed residence being reviewed under the performance standards of the NES; (3) through issuance of a building permit for a rural residence that qualified as an exception from review as a conditional use. Annexation
As Table I shows, municipal annexations during the study period included 2857 acres. Those annexations are mapped in Fig. 2,
48
TABLE I Cache County Iand conversions, July 1978-July
1982
Annexed to cities 2851 acres 2270 acres prime cropland or cropland of state-wide impor~nce Converted pursuant to a CUP 94 permits 564 acres 225 acres prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance Converted pursuant to an exception to CUP review 163 permits 2567 acres Total conversion to non-agricultural
use = 6018 acres
along with the conversions of cropland to residential use permitted by the County. All but 587 acres of the annexed lands are classified as prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance. Not all annexed acreage was immediately converted to nonagricultural use, but what has not been contoward other verted is “in the pipeline” uses. None of the annexing cities has an exclusive agricultural-use zoning district. Conditional use and building permits
Cache County has issued 257 permits for residential use on 3 131 acres in the Agricultural Zoning District (again, see Fig. 2 for the approximate location of these uses). Of that acreage, conversion of less than 20% (564 acres) was reviewed using the NES. All of the remaining conversions were excepted from the application of the NES performance standards which embody the County’s agricultural land protection policy. Only 25 applications for permits for rural residences were rejected during the study period. Of the 564 acres converted to residential use through the CUP process, only 225 were prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance. An accurate assessment of the
Fig. 2. Municipal annexations in Cache County, Utah, and conversions of cropland to residential use.
agricultural quality of the land involved in the conversions “by exception” is difficult. Building permits are issued for those conversions, but County records do not indicate the soil type at the site of the structure ap-
49
proved by the permit. Our mapping of these conversions, which is based on their road address, shotis that at least half involved prime cropland or croplands of state-wide importance. THE EXCEPTIONS As the statistics reported above indicate, exceptions have become the rule in the administration of Cache County’s zoning ordinance. The ordinance provides for two kinds of exceptions that allow cropland conversions to occur without review under the NES : (1) exceptions for dwellings to be located on parcels that were in separate ownership (that is, parcels described on a separately recorded legal instrument and having their own tax assessment number) before the zoning amendments were enacted in 1978; (2) exceptions for the dwellings of farm families and farm workers. The acreage of land converted persuant to each category of exceptions is shown in Table II.
TABLE
II
Exceptions to the CUP requirement for Cache County agricultural zoning district
residences
in the
Lots in separate ownership 83 permits 1648 acres
Includes ordinance sections excepting parcels having separate legal descriptions and tax assessment numbers before 1978
Dwellings for farm workers or family members 80 permits 919 acres
Includes sections on the creation of lots for “secondary dwellings” for family members and farm employees and the use of mobile homes as “temporary dwellings” for the same
Total conversions
by exception
= 2567 acres
Parcels in separate ownership
The large families typical of Cache Valley’s Mormon culture have, through the years, led to the creation of an ownership pattern of numerous small parcels - many of which remained in agricultural use, rented as part of a larger farm unit, until the County’s growing population and the popularity of rural living made them desirable residential locations. “Grandfathering”, the right to place a residence on each of these parcels into the County’s zoning ordinance, was perceived as a political necessity. As Table II shows, this is the largest category of exceptions. Farm dwellings
The second category of exceptions, which is intended for use by an owner’s sons or daughters, considerably expands this exception, and there is no monitoring by the County to assure that dwellings permitted for family members or farm workers are actually used by them and not by others. ZONING ADMINISTRATION The zoning ordinance use of the NES by the County Planning Commission is advisory, not mandatory, and 57% of the conditional use permits issued have been for home-sites that failed to accumulate the 650 points recommended as the minimum “score” for approval in the NES. The reasons for the Planning Commission’s disregard of the NES include a few cases of genuine hardship and disagreement with soils maps, but the reason for permit approval most frequently stated in the Commission’s minutes is that crop production will continue on most of the land on which the proposed residence is located - an argument frequently used by applicants for approval of their permit despite its failure to meet the standards of the NES. Because this continuing
50
production argument is also used against restrictions on rural residential development in other communities, we tried to assess its validity in the Cache County case. We conducted a telephone survey covering 78% of the CUP holders. Those not covered are no longer Cache County residents. We
found that there was NO agricultural production, not even a garden, on 42% of the surveyed hone-sates. Commercial crop or livestock production (usually of hay) was taking place on only 39% of the sites. WHO IS CONVERTING
CROPLAND?
Our telephone poll also allowed us to find out something about the people who had moved into rural residences in Cache County during the study period. No data exist which would allow us to compare CUP recipients with the people living in rural residences permitted ‘“by exception”, but we believe that our findings do have value for anyone trying to identify the proper “target” group for educational efforts about the importance of quality agricultural lands and the issues surrounding their conversion to other uses. The people who have received a CUP and moved into a home in rural Cache County may be briefly profiled as relatively young, with 40% being between 26 and 33 years old, well-educated, with over 40% having a college degree, and predominantly, about 46%, involved in the professions or business management. A very large percentage, about 80%, were raised, at least in part, on a farm, but despite the large number of applications who use the continuing production argument to help them get a permit, only 25% told us that the primary reason they moved into a rural setting was to be involved in agriculture. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
(1) 6018 acres of Cache County’s productive cropland were converted to other uses during the study period.
(2) Municipal annexations accounted for 47% of those conversions. (3) A vast majority (82%) of the conversions to non-agricultural use permitted by the County were not approved through the CUP permit process in which the County’s agricultural land protection policies are applied using the NES. (4) Use of the NES, in which the County’s ag~cultural land protection policies are embodied, is not required by the zoning ordinance, and the NES was, in fact, disregarded by the County Planning Commission. (5) The most frequently stated reason for permitting rural residential development is that agricultural production will continue on most of the site, but in Cache County there is no production at all on 42% of the permitted home-sites. The upshot of our findings is that the 1978 amendments to the Cache County zoning ordinance have not been effective in preventing cropland conversion to other uses. We must now ask why that is true. Is the County’s approach technically flawed? Or has a basically sound approach been rendered ineffective by an inappropriate institutional framework or by political events that are beyond the planner’s control? TECHNICAL
FAILURE
The approach developed by the Cache County planning staff and Planning Commission in 1977 and 1978 needs some improvement. The changes listed below would strengthen the County’s agricultural land protection program. They should also be used as guidelines by other communities considering the adoption of similar programs. (1) Continued a~icultural production is probably not a credible reason for permitting rural residential development, but where a community is willing to accept continued production as an argument for permit approval, the on-going agricultural activity
proposed by the applicant should become an explicit condition of permit approval and it should be made clear, both in the zoning ordinance and at permit hearings, that the permitee’s certificate of occupancy will be revoked if that condition is not fulfilled. (2) The use of performance standards which embody agricultural land protection policies should be mandatory. If those standards are inadequate or inappropriate, they should be changed by the community’s elected officials through the statutorily specified process for ordinance amendments, not at the Planning Commission’s discretion. (3) Major exceptions to the CUP process should be eliminated by requiring that all proposed land-use changes be reviewed using the performance standards that provide for agricultural land protection. While this may present a political problem, it is unlikely to be a legal one. A California appellate court has held, for example, that lots plotted at a size well below that required for residential use in a new zoning ordinance intended to protect agricultural lands were not “grandfathered” in as home-sites (California Court of Appeal, 1974). The court noted that to hoId otherwise would be to prevent a county from ever changing its land-use controls. Presumably, a farmer will not place his own, an employee’s, or a relative’s home on his best land or where it will interfere with farming operations - if the home is not so placed, it should meet the NES performance standards. Applicants who fail to meet the standards are always entitled to apply to the County Board of Adjustment for a hardship variance, which could be granted in cases, such as small lots created before the standards’ adoption, where it is proved that no beneficial agricultural use of the land is possible. These three changes would provide Cache County with a stronger agricultural lands protection program. Had they been adopted in 1978 such provisions, if properly enforced, could have forestalled many of the conver-
sions by exception and the issuance of CUP’s to residences that did not meet the NES performance standards. Cropland conversions could have been reduced by as much as 1800-l 900 acres (about 30%), but experience suggests that vigorous enforcement might have been lacking. After all, nothing prevented the Planning Commission from rejecting the CUP applications that failed to score the recommended number of NES points! We must go beyond the technical aspects of the County’s approach to cropland protection to understand its failure.
INSTITUTIONAL
FAILURE?
Cache County simply did not have any control over nearly half the cropland conversions that occurred during our study period. Over 2800 acres were converted through the independent annexation activities of 18 cities and towns. A County policy protecting agricultural lands has no official impact on the planning or decision-making of any city or town. All County government can try to do about municipal annexation policies is to take a leadership role in building public awareness of agriculture’s importance in the local economy and of the need to protect the limited cropland base. Creation of a regional planning agency to address agricultural land (and other open space) concerns may be desirable in places like Cache County where the independent actions of a number of small jurisdictions can have a large impact on the cropland base (Doherty, 1985), but the creation of an effective regional agency would require legislative authorization, a secure source of funding, and a great deal of cooperation from the affected municipalities - cooperation that would run counter to the strong sense of independent identity found in most rural communities. As in most of the U.S.A., such an institutional framework for regional land-use control does not exist in Utah.
52
POLITICAL FAILURE?
That Cache County’s attempt to protect agricultural land would be partially compromised by municipal annexation of productive lands is an inevitable result of the way local government is structured in Utah (and most of the U.S.A.). What is not inevitable is that the County should fail to enforce its own ordinance. Yet it did, and when we ask why, we find two answers: Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1980 Presidential election, which brought libertarian forms of conservatism back into style after a long period of national emphasis on community and environmental values; the deteriorating farm economy, which makes it difficult to deny cropland owners any reasonable form of financial relief, including the sale of productive cropland for conversion to other uses. Increasing consewatism
The 1980 elections resulted in more conservative leadership, both nationally and in Cache County. Newly elected County Commissioners replaced Planning Commission members who had been active in developing the agricultural land protection policy with men whose libertarian philosophy elevates the free exercise of individual property rights above community values. Amendments to the County’s zoning ordinance reflecting that philosophy were adopted late in 1984, but the newly dominant faction on the Planning Commission demonstrated its point of view immediately by voting to approve virtually every CUP application it reviewed. The County Attorney and Planning Director both warned the Commission that its actions could result in legal problems if challenged, but they were blithely ignored. As Nellis (1980) has pointed out, planning commissions that become ideological forums are not effective. Failure to enforce the agricultural land
protection policy has not generated much public debate, and no polls or other indirect means have determined which Planning Commission, the one that developed the policy or the newer one that has ignored it, is most representative of Cache County residents. We suspect that any such poll or debate would show that BOTH commissions are to some extent representative. Consistency is, after all, merely a requirement of logic - in reality, most of us have ‘“mixed feelings” about many issues. The average American is not an ideologue, and it is unusual for the majority of a planning commission to break so sharply away from established policy, but the tension between community and individual values represented by Cache County’s adoption of land-use restrictions it then fails to enforce is a leading theme of American history and an element in the politics of almost all rural communities. In Cache County, that tension has been temporarily resolved in favor of an emphasis on individual property rights. A resolution that has been made easier by the sad state of the farm economy. Farm economy
In July Agricultural
1982,
at the end of our study, noted that:
Outlook
“Recently compiled farm income statistics for 1981 clearly illustrate the cost-price squeeze farmers have experienced since 1980. Cash receipts from farm marketings rose only 3 percent last year, while cash production costs rose nearly 9 percent. (Economic Research Service, 1982, p. 10).
Dairying, Cache County’s predominant kind of farm operation, has been especially hard-hit by the sagging farm economy - milk prices have actually fallen due to surplus production in the U.S.A. and Europe. Under these conditions, it is difficult to deny farm families the opportunity to supplement their incomes with the proceeds of land sales. Failure of Cache County’s agricultural land
53
protection program was largely the result of political and economic change. A more conservative political climate combined with a deteriorating farm economy to make enforcement of the program impossible. This conclusion highlights the transitory nature of policy in local politics - where one election can change everything. It also illustrates the importance of efforts to preserve farmland (and other open space assets) through non-regulatory means that are less subject to changing times than zoning. The private preservation efforts of the American Farmland Trust (American Farmland Trust, 1985, p. 2) and the public purchase of development rights to croplands, as used in King County, Washington (Dunford, 1981), are good examples of the kinds of preservation efforts that should supplement agricultural land zoning. SUMMARY Cache County’s zoning ordinance amendments are representative of the performance zoning approach to protecting productive croplands from conversion to rural residential use, and the ordinance has also survived a serious legal challenge. Yet, despite its refiection of good current planning practice, the ordinance has not been effective in preventing significant conversions of cropland to rural residential and urban uses. The reasons for this ineffectiveness include the annexation of cropland by municipalities, which do not share the County’s ag~cultural lands protection goal, flaws in the amendments, and the troubled state of the farm economy, and the County’s current political climate. Communities considering the use of similar approaches can profit from Cache County’s experience and, using the suggestions above, create more effective agricultural land protection tools.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank Ken Sizemore and Cindi Greenwood of the Cache County Planning Office for their assistance, and Mike Timmons, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and Don Snyder, Department of Agricultural Economics of Utah State University, for their review and comments. Bill Kelley of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Eastern Washington University offered helpful editorial comments. REFERENCES American Farmland Trust, 1985. AFT takes easements on spectacular farms. Am. Farm Land, 5 (2) 2. Cache County Planning Commission Staff, 1977. Policy Plan: Towards an Update of the Comprehensive Plan of Cache County, Utah. Logan, UT. California Court of Appeal, Fifth District, 1974. Gisler v. County of Madera. App., 112 Cal. Rep. 919. Coughlin, R.E., Keene, J.C., Essexs, J.D., Toner, W. and Rosenberger, L., 1981. The Protection of Farmland: A Reference Guidebook for State and Local Governments. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 284 pp. Doherty, J.C., 1985. Growth Management in Countryfied Cities. Vert MiJon Press, Alexandria, VA, 102 pp. Dunford, R.W., 1981. Saving farmland: the King County program. J. Soil Water Conserv., 36: 19-21. Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 1982. Farm income update. Agric. Outlook, July, p. 10. Gustafson, G.C., Daniels, T.L. and Shirack, R.P., 1982. The Oregon land use act: implications for farmland and open space protection. Am. Plann. Assoc. J., 48: 365-373. Healy, R.G. and Short, J.L., 1981. The Market for Rural Land. Conservation Foundation, Washington, DC, 306 pp. Nellis, L., 1980. Planning with rural values. 5. Soil Water Conserv., 35: 67-71. Nellis, L., 1984. Zoning’s vicious cycle: and a way out. Small Town, 14 (6) 19-23. Shirvani, H. and MacLeod, D., 198.5. Learning from experience: farmland preservation in New York State. Small Town, 15 (5): 10-14. Sizemore, K., 1983. Cache County agland evaluation system. West. Plann., 4 (6) : 13. Southard, A.R., 1979. Important Farmlands of Cache County. Utah Agric. Exp. Stn. Res. Rep. 41, Logan, UT.
54
Steiner, F., 1980. Ecological Planning for Farmland Preservation: a Sourcebook for Educators and Planners. Washington State University Cooperative Extension, Pullman, WA, 122 pp. United States Department of Agriculture, 1984. 7, CFR, 658. Utah Supreme Court, 1981. Thurston v. Cache County Utah. 626 P2d 440.
Wickersham, K., 1981. The Permit System. Indian Peaks, Boulder, CO, 219 pp. Wright, L.E., Zitzmann, W., Young, K. and Coogins, R., 1983. LESA - agricultural land evaluation and site assessment. J. Soil Water Conserv., 38: 82-86.
Landscape and Urban Planning, 13 (1986) 45-54 Elsevier Science
Publishers
B.V., Amsterdam
- Printed
in The Netherlands
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ZONING FOR AGRICULTURAL LANDS PROI’ECTION: A CASE STUDY FROM CACHE COUNTY, UTAH LEE NELLIS Urban and Regional Planning, Eastern WaShington University, Cheney, WA 99004 (U.S.A.)
MARTIN N. MACA Division of Life Sciences, Northwest Wyoming Community College, Powell, WY 84325 (U.S.A.) (Accepted
for publication
13 August
1985)
ABSTRACT Nellis, L. and Maca, M.N., 1986. The effectiveness Utah. Landscape Urban Plann., 13: 45-54.
of zoning
for agricultural
lands protection:
a case study
from Cache County,
Zoning is the method local governments in the United States most frequently use to protect agricultural lands from conversion to other uses, but the actual effectiveness of zoning as an agricultural lands protection tool has rarely been evaluated. In this article, we describe the efforts of a Utah County to discourage the conversion of cropland to other uses with performance standards amended into its zoning ordinance in 1978. The extent of cropland conversion during the fist 4 years of the implementation of the amendments is documented, how the conversions were permitted is explained, and the reasons given for permitting them are analyzed. After showing that the County has not been successful in achieving its agricultural lands protection goal, we conclude with a discussion of institutional and political barriers to successful agricultural land protection programs and recommendations for the more effective use of zoning to protect agricultural lands.
INTRODUCTION
including zoning. Gustafson et al. (1982) have made an “interim assessment” of the effectiveness of exclusive farm-use zoning in Oregon’s Willamette Valley - where State law requires local governments to include agricultural lands policies in their comprehensive plans, and studies of “. . . . how agricultural zones work in practice”, in 10 communities, were conducted during the National Agricultural Lands Study (Coughlin et al., 1981). In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of zoning ordinance provisions adopted by Cache County, Utah, in limiting the conver-
“Of all the methods that local governments use to save farmland, zoning is the most common . . Yet, the history of agricultural zoning is so short that many people are not familiar with its elements. We have insufficient experience with it to let us state with certainty that agricultural zoning can be expected to save farmland.” William Toner (Coughlin et al., 1981, p. 104)
Evaluations of the effectiveness of zoning as an agricultural land protection tool are rare. Shirvani and MacLeod (1985) have recently published an assessment of farmlands preservation techniques used in New York, 0169-2046/86/$03.50
0 1986 Elsevier Science
Publishers
B.V.
46
sion of cropland to other uses. Our study covers 4 years of implementation experience and should be of value to planners, educators and community officials interested in agricultural lands protection because: (1) Cache County’s ordinance is based on policy statements typical of those found in comprehensive plans adopted by rural jurisdictions throughout the U.S.A.; (2) the section of the County’s zoning ordinance governing land-use changes in the Agricultural Zoning District are (despite the problems discussed below) fairly representative of the performance zoning and permit system approaches that have been recommended as potentially appropriate ways to implement plans in rural areas (Wickersham, 198 1; Nellis, 1984); (3) the performance standards used to guide decisions on land-use changes in the County’s Agricultural Zoning District are embodied in a “Numerical Evaluation System” somewhat similar to LESA, the Land Evaluation and Site Assessment system that has been incorporated into the rules adopted for administration of the Federal Farmland Policy Act (Wright et al., 1983; United States Department of Agriculture, 1984); (4) the County’s approach has survived a serious legal challenge (Utah Supreme Court, 1981) - a definite indication that it merits consideration by other communities.
UTAH
BACKGROUND:CACHECOUNTY Cache County is located in northeastern Utah (see Fig. 1). The county seat, Logan, has a population of about 27 000. The remainder of the County’s approximately 57 000 residents live in several smaller cities and the unincorporated rural areas. The local economy is based on education, agriculture and light industry. Utah State University, Utah’s land grant college, is the County’s largest employer. Like the University, much of the local industry, in which cheese-making and
Fig. 1. The location
of Cache County,
Utah.
meat packing are prominent, is related to agriculture. Cache County covers 751 360 acres, most of which is mountain and range land. The County’s cropland base includes only about 19 1 000 acres - 103 468 of which is irrigated and 87 243 dry-farmed. 51 890 acres of the irrigated lands are classified as prime farmland, and an additional 30 240 acres of irri-
gated and 29 5 10 acres of non-irrigated lands are classified as farmlands of state-wide importance (Southard, 1979). BACKGROUND:CACHECOUNTY PLANNING AND LAND USE CONTROLS In October 1977, Cache County up-dated its comprehensive plan with the adoption of a policy plan. A major goal adopted in the policy plan was to “maintain prime farmlands for present and future generations as a valuable natural resource” (Cache County Planning Commission Staff, 1977, p. 49). In the following July, the County adopted zoning ordinance amendments to implement the policy plan. The most significant of those amendments were intended to discourage the development of farmland for non-farm use by changing the way rural residential development was regulated. Before the 1978 amendments, non-farm residences on lots of 10 or more acres were uses-by-right in the Agricultural Zoning District, but as other jurisdictions have also learned (Steiner, 1980; Coughlin et al., 1981; Healy and Short, 1981), a large minimum lot-size actually promoted the conversion of cropland to non-farm use. Purchase of 10 acres was not expensive enough to discourage rural “ranchette” development, and so the large minimum lot-size tended to disperse rural residences throughout farming areas, leaving cumulatively large tracts of productive land in the ownership of people whose interest was not, at least primarily, in farming it. In recognition of this problem, the amendments reduced the minimum lot-size to 0.5 acres, but required that a conditional use permit (CUP) be obtained for new non-farm residences. The County Planning Commission would evaluate applications for the CUP’s on a case-by-case basis, guided by a set of performance standards known as the Numerical Evaluation System (NES). The NES, as its name implies, makes use of
numbers - positive point “scores” are assigned for the desirable features of a CUP application; negative points for its undesirable features. Negative point assignments disresidential development on good courage cropland soils. Positive scores encourage the location of residences in areas already provided with adequate road access and other public services. A complete description of the NES is found in an article by County Planning Director, Ken Sizemore (1983). When the County’s denial of a CUP was reviewed by the Utah Supreme Court in 1981, the NES was found to be an adequate basis for local landuse decisions (Utah Supreme Court, 198 1). LAND CONVERSION
STATISTICS
Awareness of the limited amount of cropland available in Cache County and of the importance of agriculture in its economy led to concern about the future of the local land base - a concern that was reflected in the 1977 policy plan and the subsequent zoning ordinance amendments. How well those amendments translated policy into action is best assessed by describing the conversion of cropland to non-farm use between July 1978 and July 1982; the first 4 years of their implementation. Conversions took place in one of three ways: (1) through annexation of cropland into incorporated cities, where land-use changes are not reviewed by the County; (2) through issuance of a CUP, with the proposed residence being reviewed under the performance standards of the NES; (3) through issuance of a building permit for a rural residence that qualified as an exception from review as a conditional use. Annexation
As Table I shows, municipal annexations during the study period included 2857 acres. Those annexations are mapped in Fig. 2,
48
TABLE I Cache County Iand conversions, July 1978-July
1982
Annexed to cities 2851 acres 2270 acres prime cropland or cropland of state-wide impor~nce Converted pursuant to a CUP 94 permits 564 acres 225 acres prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance Converted pursuant to an exception to CUP review 163 permits 2567 acres Total conversion to non-agricultural
use = 6018 acres
along with the conversions of cropland to residential use permitted by the County. All but 587 acres of the annexed lands are classified as prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance. Not all annexed acreage was immediately converted to nonagricultural use, but what has not been contoward other verted is “in the pipeline” uses. None of the annexing cities has an exclusive agricultural-use zoning district. Conditional use and building permits
Cache County has issued 257 permits for residential use on 3 131 acres in the Agricultural Zoning District (again, see Fig. 2 for the approximate location of these uses). Of that acreage, conversion of less than 20% (564 acres) was reviewed using the NES. All of the remaining conversions were excepted from the application of the NES performance standards which embody the County’s agricultural land protection policy. Only 25 applications for permits for rural residences were rejected during the study period. Of the 564 acres converted to residential use through the CUP process, only 225 were prime cropland or cropland of state-wide importance. An accurate assessment of the
Fig. 2. Municipal annexations in Cache County, Utah, and conversions of cropland to residential use.
agricultural quality of the land involved in the conversions “by exception” is difficult. Building permits are issued for those conversions, but County records do not indicate the soil type at the site of the structure ap-
49
proved by the permit. Our mapping of these conversions, which is based on their road address, shotis that at least half involved prime cropland or croplands of state-wide importance. THE EXCEPTIONS As the statistics reported above indicate, exceptions have become the rule in the administration of Cache County’s zoning ordinance. The ordinance provides for two kinds of exceptions that allow cropland conversions to occur without review under the NES : (1) exceptions for dwellings to be located on parcels that were in separate ownership (that is, parcels described on a separately recorded legal instrument and having their own tax assessment number) before the zoning amendments were enacted in 1978; (2) exceptions for the dwellings of farm families and farm workers. The acreage of land converted persuant to each category of exceptions is shown in Table II.
TABLE
II
Exceptions to the CUP requirement for Cache County agricultural zoning district
residences
in the
Lots in separate ownership 83 permits 1648 acres
Includes ordinance sections excepting parcels having separate legal descriptions and tax assessment numbers before 1978
Dwellings for farm workers or family members 80 permits 919 acres
Includes sections on the creation of lots for “secondary dwellings” for family members and farm employees and the use of mobile homes as “temporary dwellings” for the same
Total conversions
by exception
= 2567 acres
Parcels in separate ownership
The large families typical of Cache Valley’s Mormon culture have, through the years, led to the creation of an ownership pattern of numerous small parcels - many of which remained in agricultural use, rented as part of a larger farm unit, until the County’s growing population and the popularity of rural living made them desirable residential locations. “Grandfathering”, the right to place a residence on each of these parcels into the County’s zoning ordinance, was perceived as a political necessity. As Table II shows, this is the largest category of exceptions. Farm dwellings
The second category of exceptions, which is intended for use by an owner’s sons or daughters, considerably expands this exception, and there is no monitoring by the County to assure that dwellings permitted for family members or farm workers are actually used by them and not by others. ZONING ADMINISTRATION The zoning ordinance use of the NES by the County Planning Commission is advisory, not mandatory, and 57% of the conditional use permits issued have been for home-sites that failed to accumulate the 650 points recommended as the minimum “score” for approval in the NES. The reasons for the Planning Commission’s disregard of the NES include a few cases of genuine hardship and disagreement with soils maps, but the reason for permit approval most frequently stated in the Commission’s minutes is that crop production will continue on most of the land on which the proposed residence is located - an argument frequently used by applicants for approval of their permit despite its failure to meet the standards of the NES. Because this continuing
50
production argument is also used against restrictions on rural residential development in other communities, we tried to assess its validity in the Cache County case. We conducted a telephone survey covering 78% of the CUP holders. Those not covered are no longer Cache County residents. We
found that there was NO agricultural production, not even a garden, on 42% of the surveyed hone-sates. Commercial crop or livestock production (usually of hay) was taking place on only 39% of the sites. WHO IS CONVERTING
CROPLAND?
Our telephone poll also allowed us to find out something about the people who had moved into rural residences in Cache County during the study period. No data exist which would allow us to compare CUP recipients with the people living in rural residences permitted ‘“by exception”, but we believe that our findings do have value for anyone trying to identify the proper “target” group for educational efforts about the importance of quality agricultural lands and the issues surrounding their conversion to other uses. The people who have received a CUP and moved into a home in rural Cache County may be briefly profiled as relatively young, with 40% being between 26 and 33 years old, well-educated, with over 40% having a college degree, and predominantly, about 46%, involved in the professions or business management. A very large percentage, about 80%, were raised, at least in part, on a farm, but despite the large number of applications who use the continuing production argument to help them get a permit, only 25% told us that the primary reason they moved into a rural setting was to be involved in agriculture. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
(1) 6018 acres of Cache County’s productive cropland were converted to other uses during the study period.
(2) Municipal annexations accounted for 47% of those conversions. (3) A vast majority (82%) of the conversions to non-agricultural use permitted by the County were not approved through the CUP permit process in which the County’s agricultural land protection policies are applied using the NES. (4) Use of the NES, in which the County’s ag~cultural land protection policies are embodied, is not required by the zoning ordinance, and the NES was, in fact, disregarded by the County Planning Commission. (5) The most frequently stated reason for permitting rural residential development is that agricultural production will continue on most of the site, but in Cache County there is no production at all on 42% of the permitted home-sites. The upshot of our findings is that the 1978 amendments to the Cache County zoning ordinance have not been effective in preventing cropland conversion to other uses. We must now ask why that is true. Is the County’s approach technically flawed? Or has a basically sound approach been rendered ineffective by an inappropriate institutional framework or by political events that are beyond the planner’s control? TECHNICAL
FAILURE
The approach developed by the Cache County planning staff and Planning Commission in 1977 and 1978 needs some improvement. The changes listed below would strengthen the County’s agricultural land protection program. They should also be used as guidelines by other communities considering the adoption of similar programs. (1) Continued a~icultural production is probably not a credible reason for permitting rural residential development, but where a community is willing to accept continued production as an argument for permit approval, the on-going agricultural activity
proposed by the applicant should become an explicit condition of permit approval and it should be made clear, both in the zoning ordinance and at permit hearings, that the permitee’s certificate of occupancy will be revoked if that condition is not fulfilled. (2) The use of performance standards which embody agricultural land protection policies should be mandatory. If those standards are inadequate or inappropriate, they should be changed by the community’s elected officials through the statutorily specified process for ordinance amendments, not at the Planning Commission’s discretion. (3) Major exceptions to the CUP process should be eliminated by requiring that all proposed land-use changes be reviewed using the performance standards that provide for agricultural land protection. While this may present a political problem, it is unlikely to be a legal one. A California appellate court has held, for example, that lots plotted at a size well below that required for residential use in a new zoning ordinance intended to protect agricultural lands were not “grandfathered” in as home-sites (California Court of Appeal, 1974). The court noted that to hoId otherwise would be to prevent a county from ever changing its land-use controls. Presumably, a farmer will not place his own, an employee’s, or a relative’s home on his best land or where it will interfere with farming operations - if the home is not so placed, it should meet the NES performance standards. Applicants who fail to meet the standards are always entitled to apply to the County Board of Adjustment for a hardship variance, which could be granted in cases, such as small lots created before the standards’ adoption, where it is proved that no beneficial agricultural use of the land is possible. These three changes would provide Cache County with a stronger agricultural lands protection program. Had they been adopted in 1978 such provisions, if properly enforced, could have forestalled many of the conver-
sions by exception and the issuance of CUP’s to residences that did not meet the NES performance standards. Cropland conversions could have been reduced by as much as 1800-l 900 acres (about 30%), but experience suggests that vigorous enforcement might have been lacking. After all, nothing prevented the Planning Commission from rejecting the CUP applications that failed to score the recommended number of NES points! We must go beyond the technical aspects of the County’s approach to cropland protection to understand its failure.
INSTITUTIONAL
FAILURE?
Cache County simply did not have any control over nearly half the cropland conversions that occurred during our study period. Over 2800 acres were converted through the independent annexation activities of 18 cities and towns. A County policy protecting agricultural lands has no official impact on the planning or decision-making of any city or town. All County government can try to do about municipal annexation policies is to take a leadership role in building public awareness of agriculture’s importance in the local economy and of the need to protect the limited cropland base. Creation of a regional planning agency to address agricultural land (and other open space) concerns may be desirable in places like Cache County where the independent actions of a number of small jurisdictions can have a large impact on the cropland base (Doherty, 1985), but the creation of an effective regional agency would require legislative authorization, a secure source of funding, and a great deal of cooperation from the affected municipalities - cooperation that would run counter to the strong sense of independent identity found in most rural communities. As in most of the U.S.A., such an institutional framework for regional land-use control does not exist in Utah.
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POLITICAL FAILURE?
That Cache County’s attempt to protect agricultural land would be partially compromised by municipal annexation of productive lands is an inevitable result of the way local government is structured in Utah (and most of the U.S.A.). What is not inevitable is that the County should fail to enforce its own ordinance. Yet it did, and when we ask why, we find two answers: Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1980 Presidential election, which brought libertarian forms of conservatism back into style after a long period of national emphasis on community and environmental values; the deteriorating farm economy, which makes it difficult to deny cropland owners any reasonable form of financial relief, including the sale of productive cropland for conversion to other uses. Increasing consewatism
The 1980 elections resulted in more conservative leadership, both nationally and in Cache County. Newly elected County Commissioners replaced Planning Commission members who had been active in developing the agricultural land protection policy with men whose libertarian philosophy elevates the free exercise of individual property rights above community values. Amendments to the County’s zoning ordinance reflecting that philosophy were adopted late in 1984, but the newly dominant faction on the Planning Commission demonstrated its point of view immediately by voting to approve virtually every CUP application it reviewed. The County Attorney and Planning Director both warned the Commission that its actions could result in legal problems if challenged, but they were blithely ignored. As Nellis (1980) has pointed out, planning commissions that become ideological forums are not effective. Failure to enforce the agricultural land
protection policy has not generated much public debate, and no polls or other indirect means have determined which Planning Commission, the one that developed the policy or the newer one that has ignored it, is most representative of Cache County residents. We suspect that any such poll or debate would show that BOTH commissions are to some extent representative. Consistency is, after all, merely a requirement of logic - in reality, most of us have ‘“mixed feelings” about many issues. The average American is not an ideologue, and it is unusual for the majority of a planning commission to break so sharply away from established policy, but the tension between community and individual values represented by Cache County’s adoption of land-use restrictions it then fails to enforce is a leading theme of American history and an element in the politics of almost all rural communities. In Cache County, that tension has been temporarily resolved in favor of an emphasis on individual property rights. A resolution that has been made easier by the sad state of the farm economy. Farm economy
In July Agricultural
1982,
at the end of our study, noted that:
Outlook
“Recently compiled farm income statistics for 1981 clearly illustrate the cost-price squeeze farmers have experienced since 1980. Cash receipts from farm marketings rose only 3 percent last year, while cash production costs rose nearly 9 percent. (Economic Research Service, 1982, p. 10).
Dairying, Cache County’s predominant kind of farm operation, has been especially hard-hit by the sagging farm economy - milk prices have actually fallen due to surplus production in the U.S.A. and Europe. Under these conditions, it is difficult to deny farm families the opportunity to supplement their incomes with the proceeds of land sales. Failure of Cache County’s agricultural land
53
protection program was largely the result of political and economic change. A more conservative political climate combined with a deteriorating farm economy to make enforcement of the program impossible. This conclusion highlights the transitory nature of policy in local politics - where one election can change everything. It also illustrates the importance of efforts to preserve farmland (and other open space assets) through non-regulatory means that are less subject to changing times than zoning. The private preservation efforts of the American Farmland Trust (American Farmland Trust, 1985, p. 2) and the public purchase of development rights to croplands, as used in King County, Washington (Dunford, 1981), are good examples of the kinds of preservation efforts that should supplement agricultural land zoning. SUMMARY Cache County’s zoning ordinance amendments are representative of the performance zoning approach to protecting productive croplands from conversion to rural residential use, and the ordinance has also survived a serious legal challenge. Yet, despite its refiection of good current planning practice, the ordinance has not been effective in preventing significant conversions of cropland to rural residential and urban uses. The reasons for this ineffectiveness include the annexation of cropland by municipalities, which do not share the County’s ag~cultural lands protection goal, flaws in the amendments, and the troubled state of the farm economy, and the County’s current political climate. Communities considering the use of similar approaches can profit from Cache County’s experience and, using the suggestions above, create more effective agricultural land protection tools.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank Ken Sizemore and Cindi Greenwood of the Cache County Planning Office for their assistance, and Mike Timmons, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and Don Snyder, Department of Agricultural Economics of Utah State University, for their review and comments. Bill Kelley of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Eastern Washington University offered helpful editorial comments. REFERENCES American Farmland Trust, 1985. AFT takes easements on spectacular farms. Am. Farm Land, 5 (2) 2. Cache County Planning Commission Staff, 1977. Policy Plan: Towards an Update of the Comprehensive Plan of Cache County, Utah. Logan, UT. California Court of Appeal, Fifth District, 1974. Gisler v. County of Madera. App., 112 Cal. Rep. 919. Coughlin, R.E., Keene, J.C., Essexs, J.D., Toner, W. and Rosenberger, L., 1981. The Protection of Farmland: A Reference Guidebook for State and Local Governments. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 284 pp. Doherty, J.C., 1985. Growth Management in Countryfied Cities. Vert MiJon Press, Alexandria, VA, 102 pp. Dunford, R.W., 1981. Saving farmland: the King County program. J. Soil Water Conserv., 36: 19-21. Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 1982. Farm income update. Agric. Outlook, July, p. 10. Gustafson, G.C., Daniels, T.L. and Shirack, R.P., 1982. The Oregon land use act: implications for farmland and open space protection. Am. Plann. Assoc. J., 48: 365-373. Healy, R.G. and Short, J.L., 1981. The Market for Rural Land. Conservation Foundation, Washington, DC, 306 pp. Nellis, L., 1980. Planning with rural values. 5. Soil Water Conserv., 35: 67-71. Nellis, L., 1984. Zoning’s vicious cycle: and a way out. Small Town, 14 (6) 19-23. Shirvani, H. and MacLeod, D., 198.5. Learning from experience: farmland preservation in New York State. Small Town, 15 (5): 10-14. Sizemore, K., 1983. Cache County agland evaluation system. West. Plann., 4 (6) : 13. Southard, A.R., 1979. Important Farmlands of Cache County. Utah Agric. Exp. Stn. Res. Rep. 41, Logan, UT.
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Steiner, F., 1980. Ecological Planning for Farmland Preservation: a Sourcebook for Educators and Planners. Washington State University Cooperative Extension, Pullman, WA, 122 pp. United States Department of Agriculture, 1984. 7, CFR, 658. Utah Supreme Court, 1981. Thurston v. Cache County Utah. 626 P2d 440.
Wickersham, K., 1981. The Permit System. Indian Peaks, Boulder, CO, 219 pp. Wright, L.E., Zitzmann, W., Young, K. and Coogins, R., 1983. LESA - agricultural land evaluation and site assessment. J. Soil Water Conserv., 38: 82-86.