SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
May 17, 2018
Sullivan’s Salvos 5/22/18
In this edition:
*Commencement
*Small Farms and the Ag Exemption
*Did You Know?
*Commencement
All graduations are special occasions! Congratulations to everyone who has a personal connection this graduation season!
Upon further reflection, I actually prefer the term “commencement”. While acknowledging that a big segment of our lives have been completed, the event symbolizes a move forward in the continuum of life. The word “commencement” really sums up the event.
Congratulations again to all the graduates, their friends, and families!
*Small Farms and the Ag Exemption
Johnson County is about to vote on an update to our Land Use Plan. (The new document will actually be a Comprehensive Plan.) This is a process that happens roughly every ten years - the first plan was in 1988, the second in 1998, the third in 2008, and now 2018. These plans guide growth and development in the County for that ten-year period. And as a part of this, all of our various Planning and Zoning ordinances and rules are under review.
One Land Use topic has been in the news a lot lately, and that is the idea of small farmers and access to land. “Access to land” is an interesting idea. In a classic economic sense, the market takes care of access to land. If you want it, you buy it. If someone wants it more than you, she pays more. The value of the land is what someone is willing to pay.
Once you add the layer of zoning into the mix, things change a bit. Now the uses of the land are restricted. So where as land might be worth $75,000 an acre for development, it is only worth $10,000 an acre as farmland. With these types of disparities, you can begin to see the issues.
Long ago - even prior to the 1998 Land Use Plan - Johnson County began feeling the pressure of people wanting to move here. They were gobbling up farmland to put up housing developments. It seemed a shame that some of the world’s best farmland was being sacrificed for these houses.
In addition, land values went through the roof. There was little incentive for some farmers to grow commodities and sell at low prices when they could just sell their land for development. Farmers who wanted to expand their operations and young farmers were shut out by these high land prices.
So the Board of Supervisors acted. They began to prioritize the preservation of Ag land, especially prime Ag land. And as soon as they did, developers started finding ways around it. They knew that Iowa law provided something known as the Ag Exemption. The Ag Exemption, written specifically for farmers, allows unfettered building of farmhouses. Suddenly, every person with an apple tree was a “farmer.” The Board was going to need to do more, or all the Ag land would be gobbled up.
One of the ways in which they did this was the “40 Acre Rule.” This is pretty simple. It says that in order to be considered Ag exempt, you must have a minimum lot size of 40 acres. 40 acres is basically the standard Iowa field, also known as a quarter of a quarter section.
By limiting the Ag exemption to lots of 40 acres or more, the Board put a stop to 5 and ten-acre residential lots, while still allowing conventional farmers to enjoy the exemption intended for them. This worked fine for many years.
As the local food movement took hold in the 90s, and as it has grown since, more and more people want to get involved in growing their own food. There are few prohibitions on this, mind you. You can start growing food almost anywhere in Johnson County. What you may not have, of course, is the Ag Exemption. That is a key to the rest of our discussion.
You will often hear people disparagingly claim that the Board says less than 40 acres is not a “farm.” Here is the deal - everyone has her/his own definition of a farm. When people talk about the definition of a farm, they are typically referring to the Ag Exemption. Ag Exempt property is just that - exempt - from most zoning laws.
So there are several things you can do on Ag Exempt property. You can have a virtually unlimited number of animals. You can build two houses, and the houses do not need to be inspected. You can build an almost unlimited number of outbuildings, and these buildings do not need to be inspected.
There are people who grow food on several acres, but are taxed residentially. There are people taxed as Agricultural who don’t grow anything. Tax status currently has nothing to do with the Ag Exemption.
So, one can see why everyone would want the Ag Exemption. Less rules are good, right? Well, not always. How would you feel about an unlimited number of hogs or chickens sitting on two acres right next to your house? Would you argue that it was incompatible? Would you look to the County to protect you? This is precisely why Johnson County has reserved the Ag Exemption for parcels of 40 acres or more.
Ag buildings are not inspected. This may be all right in many cases. But what about when 10 people work in said building? Do those ten workers not deserve a safe work environment? What happens when those ten people die in a building collapse? This is precisely why Johnson County has reserved the Ag Exemption for parcels of 40 acres or more.
I mentioned the Ag Exemption as it applies to housing. Less rules are good, right? Well, not always. How would you feel about hundreds of undocumented workers crowding into three or four trailers that lack water and sewer service? Does this sound like a rural utopia? It happened once in Johnson County (before I was a Supervisor.) The Board at that time took steps to prevent it from happening again. But, those darned rules…This is precisely why Johnson County has reserved the Ag Exemption for parcels of 40 acres or more.
Ag exempt homes are not inspected. If you build your dream home on 3 acres, the County inspects it. If you build your dream home on 40 acres, the County does not. Less rules are good, right? Well, not always. Do we really want every home going uninspected? How many lives will be lost? How many unsuspecting buyers need to get burned? (Literally and figuratively!) Personally, I believe ALL houses should be inspected, period. Who cares what the owner does for a living? This is precisely why Johnson County has reserved the Ag Exemption for parcels of 40 acres or more.
One more housing related issue. As I mentioned earlier, since the 1990s, Johnson County has done a really good job of reducing sprawl and saving farmland, despite incredible growth pressures. Look at the growth rates of Coralville, North Liberty, and other cities before 1990, then after. As the County reduced options for new housing, population in those cities exploded! And that is a good thing. In general, it is better that people live in the city if they are not farming.
I find it interesting that people who are otherwise Libertarian find access to land for young farmers to be a big issue. There are young people who want to start restaurants, but lack the resources. We do not do anything for them. There are young people who want to own their own auto repair businesses, but lack the resources. We do not do anything for them.
What’s more, it is the banks that refuse to loan the money. If the banks refuse to loan the money, A) Bring it up with the banks, and B) Why won’t they lend? We should know the answer to this before we begin changing rules.
What many small, beginning farmers fail to realize? They will not win the battle for land. Who is more likely to be able to afford 10 acres on the edge of Iowa City, a 27 year old who grows organic asparagus, or a developer who will turn that into two McMansions, each with 5 acres of nitrogen-laced turf grass? (I’ll go ahead and answer the question. The developer wins. Every time.)
What’s more, the Ag Exemption can be used as a tool to get around County zoning requirements. It is easy to picture the young farmer buying her 10 aces, building a nice house, and starting to farm. What happens in two years when she decides farming is too hard? The house is already there. The farmland is already gone. This creates a HUGE loophole!
It is interesting to see the strange bedfellows on this topic. People who want to know the source of their food, and want healthy, organic produce are in bed with people who pollute indiscriminately and spoil our environment. What can we learn from this?
In a few cases, Board Members and PDS staffers have identified suitable tracts of land for beginning farmers to buy. Personally, I have urged a number of them to work with the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT), which will preserve the farmland in perpetuity. There have been no takers. Apparently preserving farmland is only talk and no action for some of our complainants?
The purpose of this long piece is not to say we are against small farms - we are not. It is not to say we should do nothing different - we need to make some changes. What it IS intended to do is to point out that the issues are COMPLICATED.
Anything the Board does to change the 40 Acre Rule could have a devastating effect in terms of CAFOs, urban sprawl, and more. We need to make changes, but we need to make them thoughtfully, carefully, and with a sharp eye toward unintended consequences.
If you say these issues are easy to tackle? You are either only partially informed or supremely selfish. This is tricky, folks. Don¹t let anyone tell you otherwise!
*DID YOU KNOW? About 4500 students will graduate from the UI in May 2018.
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 1:27 PM
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