Questions on urban reserves: answered.

Carla Axtman

Last week, I published a story about Jean Edwards, a blueberry farmer whose land had been placed in urban reserves. Edwards and her neighbors had protested having their land designated this way and expressed concerns about what it would do to their ability to farm and keep their land for agriculture.

Several Blue Oregon readers asked some really great follow-up questions in comments to the post. Instead of answering them myself, I sent the questions to Cherry Amabisca, a farmer in Washington County who is active with the pro-agriculture group Save Helvetia. Cherry has been neck-deep in the Urban and Rural Reserves process for Washington County and has an outstanding working knowledge of the issues.

The first comment came from Mitch Gore:

f they own their land it will be developed only if they chose to develop it or sell it to a developer. Am I missing something here?

Cherry answers: Technically, that is correct. But, there are other factors that come into play. First, as properties around farms are sold to developers, the prices go up greatly. Property taxes go up accordingly for the entire neighborhood, making it more expensive for farmers. But worse, because the price per acre has increased so much, farmers cannot afford to expand their operations unless they move out of the area totally, making it more difficult to supply local food. For example, the price of farmland per acre north of Highway 26 has gone up about 500% in the last 12 years because developers have bought parcels with the intent of subdividing. In the Jackson School Road area, prices per acre were $3,500 twelve years ago; now they are at least $21,000. In the Valley Vista Road area, they are about $26,000 an acre. Another example is that we have many young people who want to buy land to create CSA's - with the inflated price of farmland caused by developers they cannot afford it.

Once a developer buys land near farmland, several things happen. If they develop it, then the adjacent farmers have to contend with residential neighbors who complain about noise, dust, farm equipment, etc. Even though the farm was there first, when this collision happens, the farmer usually loses out. Second, many times the developer lets the land stay fallow, waiting for a better market, to get financing, etc. Because the developer never intended to farm it in the first place, he doesn't understand the impact on the adjacent farms when fields are not mowed and allowed to go to seed. In the West Union area north of Highway 26, there are fields now owned by developers who bought out farmers and are holding the fields for future use. The noxious weeds from these fields blow onto adjacent farmlands, contaminating their seed crops. The farmers then have to spend extra money to "clean" the seeds, their crop "purity" is downgraded and they get less money for their crops. Some noxious weeds, like Canada thistle, can stay in the ground for over 20 years, contaminating crops every year. Many noxious weeds can travel for several miles to adjacent farms.

The effect of an area being designated as Urban Reserves or Undesignated is very worrying to farmers. In the area north of Highway 26, we have seen speculators buying out farmers with the expectation that a particular piece of land will be included in the Urban Reserves and thus be ripe for development soon. We have cases where speculators bought land in the last two years, and, now that it was designated as Rural Reserves, they are petitioning with their attorneys to have the designation changed to Urban Reserves. Unfortunately, the price per acre is now at the higher price paid by the developer, ratcheting up the price per acre and making it impossible for farmers to buy additional land to farm.

And this series from Joanne Rigutto (snipped for brevity):

"It sounds like they are taking advantage of agricultural rates for taxes. Their taxes shouldn't go up unless the value of their land goes up. Is she worried that the land will increase so greatly in value that she will no longer be able to afford to live there?"

"Did the county place areas in the urban reserves that would be suitable for industrial development? I sat on Clackamas county's policy advisory committee for the reserves process, and one of the key issues we looked at was land suitable for commercial/industrial development. Housing can happen on almost any kind of land/topography, but for commercial/industrial development, the criteria for what type of land is feasable are much more narrow. "

"To the public input issue and people knowing what went on in the process, I don't know how much outreach that Washington county did during the reserves process. I do know that there were public open houses in all 3 counties, and I think all of the committee meetings in all 3 counties as well as the regional steering committee were open to the public. There were also some articles in the Capital Press, the agriculture newspaper, the Oregonian ran articles about the process, etc., so there was actually quite a lot of information out there on the process. One of the things I heard often from a fair number of people when I'd bring up the topic of the reserves process was that they weren't interested in attending any of the meetings, or in the process in general, which took me aback at first, especially given the potential impact one designation or another might have on the person's property. But then I remember how I was up untill several years ago, and I can understand their position."

Cherry answers: Property taxes in Washington County are based on an average sales price for properties in a particular neighborhood. If there are sales to developers at high prices in a particular area, all the property taxes for that neighborhood are increased as the average goes up. Even if a farmer has a farm deferral, property taxes will increase based on the higher sales price.

Washington County placed almost one third of its available EFU land into urban reserves before reducing it after a lot of pressure. For example, they placed over 10,000 acres of foundation farmland north of Highway 26 all the way from Highway 26 to the foothills of the Tualatin Mountains because it was flat and near the freeway. Their main criteria appeared to be they wanted 100 acre lots to be able to offer as industrial sites to high-tech companies.

Regarding citizen involvement in the reserves process, my opinion is that it was considerably different in Multnomah and Clackamas Counties than in Washington County. Clackamas County had a Policy Advisory Committee that included citizens (about 14?) Clackamas also had citizen representatives from 4 CPO's and 3 hamlets on their committee. Multnomah County had a Citizens Advisory Committee that included 19 citizens. Washington County' s advisory committee was the Planning Directors, a group of city planning directors under the leadership of the county planning department. THeir meetings were closed to the public. They advised the Washington County Reserves Coordinating Committee, which was comprised of city mayors with 12 votes and had one voting position shared by two members of the Washington County Farm Bureau, and no citizens. Yes, Washington County offered open houses, press releases, postcard mailings, etc. The INPUT they got in testimony at hearings and in letters from citizens was overwhelming in favor of rural reserves but because the voting members of the RCC were mayors who wanted to EXPAND their cities, Washington County ended up with an enormous amount of urban reserves. Save Helvetia was formed because a group of residents went to the first open house and were astounded to see their entire area mapped out as urban reserves by the county showing a town center and light rail running through working farms without any involvement by citizens in the planning process. Save Helvetia members testified before LCDC in October, 2009, about how Washington County did not follow Goal 1 and did not follow the Public Involvment Plan for the Urban and Rural Reserves process.

And then from Michael Moore, who I'm answering myself:

The flip side of that (it's not just jobs but rural beauty that brings people here) being that people can't come here, or can't stay, without jobs. To what extent does Ms. Edwards expect that others can enjoy this "rural beauty" without jobs? I get that paving over paradise means paradise is destroyed, but does Ms. Edwards get that paying lower taxes on her property because it is a farm is essentially the equivalent of loads of county residents (including the unemployed lucky enough still to be getting checks) subsidizing her personal paradise while struggling to make a living?

Carla replies: Except that the Edwards Farm is creating jobs. Someone has to pick those berries, that provides income and jobs for the Edwards'. Someone else has a job because they lease farmland from the Edwards. Others have jobs directly related to their farm in the way of berry storage, shipping and processing. All of these are Oregon jobs, too. The berry storage is in North Plains. The shipping from North Plains to Gresham (where the berries are processed) is all in-state.

By Carla Axtman April 30, 2010