Earlier this year, Assemblyman Marc Levine, who represents Marin and southern Sonoma Counties, introduced a bill intended to spare farmers in the coastal zone the hassle and cost of obtaining permits through the California Coastal Commission.
Though the bill could offer West Marin farmers relief from proposed restrictions in the county’s Local Coastal Program amendment, its current language presents a number of the same problems.
A.B. 2754 would revise the 1976 Coastal Act to clarify that ongoing and routine agricultural activities are not considered “development” and are therefore exempt from permitting. These activities include the cultivation and tillage of the soil, crop rotation, dairying and the production, cultivation, growing, planting and harvesting of any agricultural commodity, including viticulture, vermiculture, apiculture and horticulture.
A fact sheet released by Assemblyman Levine’s staff criticized the commission for the over-regulation of everyday farm practices on the coast. “Several activities, that are routine to agricultural operations and conform to the priorities of the act, have been subject to costly and time-consuming permitting by the commission,” it states.
The state assembly’s 10-member committee on natural resources will vote on the bill on April 23, after which it must be passed by the appropriations committee before it is heard by the full floor.
“We’re so thankful to Mark Levine for taking this on and recognizing that there is an issue here,” said Kevin Lunny, a third-generation Point Reyes beef rancher. “It is an extremely time-consuming and expensive process to get a coastal development permit, and it effectively prohibits us from adapting our practices. Farming is a dynamic industry, and we need to be able to keep up with climate change, weather and market challenges.”
Mr. Lunny is among numerous farmers and ranchers who have been critical of last-minute comments that coastal commission staff made in their revised findings on the county’s draft Local Coastal Program amendment last July.
Senior county planner Tom Lai, who has shared their frustrations, characterized the bill as a “godsend” for Marin farmers. “We have focused on what exemptions we could provide for ongoing agricultural operations in the L.C.P., but this bill goes straight to the first step of regulation, eliminating the need for a coastal development permit for all of those operations in the first place,” he said.
Yet Mr. Lai also pointed out that a number of issues related to agriculture are not necessarily resolved in the bill.
First, under A.B. 2754, the conversion of rangeland to crops—which is not considered a “routine agricultural activity” under state law—would be newly regulated unless it were to have no impact on the intensity of water usage.
That question—whether converting rangeland to row crops requires a coastal permit—has been extensively debated by Marin County planners and coastal commission staff in the years-long L.C.P. update. The majority of the L.C.P. will come before the Board of Supervisors for final approval later this month.
The issue is of special concern to ranchers in the Point Reyes National Seashore who have for years called for the ability to diversify their operations.
“We don’t have enough row crops in this area,” Mr. Lunny said. “We have meat and milk, but people can’t live on those alone. From an environmental as well as a community perspective, small-scale diversified operations are so much better for the land than large-scale monocultures.”
In its July revised findings, which are separate from the text of the amendment but futher explain the commission’s intent, coastal commission staff added the conversion of rangeland to crops to the list of activities that require permitting. Now, the language of the L.C.P. amendment largely matches the bill, requiring permitting for that conversion unless it does not result in increased water or land usage.
The county remains concerned that the commission’s revised findings suggest that the commission plans to single out the conversion of rangeland for regulation.
Mr. Lunny questioned whether Assemblyman Levine had overlooked the issue, and said he hoped it could be resolved down the line.
The bill’s general language passes over another hotly contested issue in Marin.
A.B. 2754 includes the caveat that farmers don’t need permits “unless the commission makes a finding that their activities have a substantial impact on protected coastal resources.”
The updated L.C.P. also includes this caveat, and county planners outlined six specific impacts to coastal resources that would trigger the need for a permit. These included expanding water sources, terracing the land, planting grapes, grading hillsides with an over 15 percent slope or growing marijuana, and the installation or extension of irrigation systems.
Yet the commission took out that language, leaving impacts to coastal resources up to their own discretion.
Assemblyman Levine’s legislative director, Kurt Schuparra, told the Light this week that he wasn’t sure how the assembly would tackle that issue in particular, but that the natural resources committee would likely further define the language later this month.
Despite the persisting concerns, Mr. Lai remained optimistic about the bill for Marin farmers.
“This bill shows an attempt at the state level to address the coastal commission overreaching to regulate agriculture in local coastal programs,” he said. “We are not the only community facing the coastal commission staff’s attempt to rein back in what is, in their view, a failure to regulate agriculture as they see it under the Coastal Act.”
This article was corrected on April 17.