A long-awaited rewrite of the agricultural element of Stanislaus County's general plan won approval from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday night on a 3-2 vote after changes were made to a controversial land mitigation provision.
The ag element addresses issues such as creating buffers between agriculture and other uses; offsetting the loss of farmland to development; housing for farmworkers; protecting food safety; and air quality, water and soil resources.
But the provision that calls for mitigating the loss of farmland to development drew the most opposition. The Building Industry Association of Central California, among others, opposed the mitigation measure as a violation of property rights.
Farm and environmental advocates favored the ag element revision -- the first since 1992 -- and spoke in favor of the mitigation provision, which calls for developers to preserve an equivalent quality of farmland on an acre-for-acre basis.
After a motion to approve the element as proposed failed, supervisors changed the mitigation provision to apply only to residential developments. Supervisor Jeff Grover was concerned that the county's efforts to bring employers and jobs to the area would be hampered if mitigation were required for conversion of farmland to industrial or commercial uses.
The amended motion drew support from Grover, Tom Mayfield and Jim DeMartini.
Supervisor Dick Monteith voted against it after talking about creating incentives for developers to build on poor agricultural soils.
Supervisor Bill O'Brien voted "no" after discussing the ag element's impacts on farmers who own unirrigated pasture land, which makes up a large part of his district in the northeast part of the county.
The latest draft of the general plan amendment addresses several issues the Board of Supervisors raised in rejecting the amendment in April.
The supervisors wanted more specific guidelines for the ag land buffers, an update of the Williamson Act rules, a review and update of the A-2 general agriculture zoning district, guidelines for offsetting the loss of agricultural lands to development and a better definition of a viable farming operation.
Those items were addressed in the new draft, but the guidelines for mitigating farmland loss drew the ire of the Building Industry Association.
Association officials protested at a county Planning Commission meeting Dec. 6 that the guidelines violated property rights and amounted to taking land value from developers and giving it to farmers.
They also argued that farmland in the county is not endangered. They pointed to an increase in farm acreage and the price farmers have been paid for goods in recent years.
Agricultural and environmental advocates defended the mitigation measure as vital to protecting the county's No. 1 industry.
The Planning Commission approved the draft ag element on an 8-0 vote.
Bee staff writer Tim Moran can be reached at tmoran@modbee.com or 578-2349.
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