Values for saving farmland up for a vote

Six of the nine cities in Stanislaus County are lining up against a proposed farmland preservation rule scheduled for a vote Wednesday.

Ceres, Riverbank, Oakdale, Patterson, Newman and Waterford fear the proposal would “artificially inflate the market” for farm conservation easements and argue that it would usurp cities’ and counties’ land-use authority.

“We embrace our country’s founding principles of a free market and local control,” attorney Douglas White, who represents most of the cities, said in a letter to the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission. That body rules on cities’ annexation requests and will consider the controversial rule change next week.

LAFCO made headlines with a 2012 policy requiring that cities do something to save farmland when applying to grow, such as having voters approve urban limits or permanently preserving farmland somewhere else in the county. The current proposal includes a formula for computing how much money developers should pay cities, to be put toward buying and overseeing farm easements.

The change was suggested when Patterson leaders last year considered charging $2,000 an acre. Critics scoffed, saying that’s nowhere near the true cost of easements.

LAFCO’s staff studied formulas used elsewhere, from $2,500 per acre charged by Lathrop, Manteca and Tracy to Stockton’s $9,600 per acre. Staffers settled on methodology similar to that adopted by Stanislaus County, Hughson and Yolo County’s LAFCO and embraced by the Central Valley Farmland Trust; it would require fees equal to 35 percent of average prices in five comparable land sales, plus a 5 percent endowment. That currently comes to $7,305 per acre.

“The proposal will do nothing but make it more expensive to preserve agricultural land,” White said.

Also, it “raises serious legal questions regarding whether Stanislaus LAFCO is unconstitutionally exercising” power traditionally held by cities, he said, asking the agency to stop “unreasonably interfer(ing)” and give “the free market a chance to work.”

Waterford Mayor Mike Van Winkle sent a letter arguing similar points and predicting the rule change would “deter future annexations, as it will be infeasible for developers to pay” such fees. Patterson City Manager Ken Irwin said the rule could derail his staff’s effort to establish a mitigation bank that would amass fees and use them to leverage more farm-saving money in state tax credits and federal grants.

Sara Lytle-Pinhey, LAFCO’s assistant executive officer, recommends that the proposed formula be offered as a guideline for calculating acceptable fees. If a city wants to charge developers less, it would be free to “provide additional information demonstrating that the lower fee is sufficient,” she said in a report.

The commission is composed of two officeholders from the county, two from cities and Brad Hawn. Hawn is a former Modesto councilman but is supposed to represent the public.

Stanislaus LAFCO will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the basement chamber at Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St., Modesto. For more information, go to www.stanislauslafco.org/info/Agenda_PDFs/15/03252015a.pdf.

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 7:24 PM with the headline "Values for saving farmland up for a vote."