Local agriculturalists and environmentalists worked this month on articulating their concerns about proposed changes California Coastal Commission staff made to a key part of Marin’s Local Coastal Program update.
Discussions have revolved around how to regulate on-site processing facilities, what amount of grading needs a permit—and how to define agriculture itself.
The part of the coastal program currently under discussion—the nuts and bolts of program, called the implementation plan—is crucial, said Sam Dolcini, the president of the Marin County Farm Bureau.
“This section of the plan is critical, because it will outline very specific circumstances that one will have imposed on them in their farming operations,” he said.
Coastal programs regulate development and its impact on the environment, public access to the coast, views and more. The county adopted its first program in 1982. In May, the commission approved part of the program, the Land Use Plan, which provides a framework for rules in the coastal zone—over 82,000 acres in Marin, from Dillon Beach to Muir Beach. Over a third is land used for agriculture.
The Coastal Act is in part meant to protect food production, but ranchers and farmers say that time-consuming and costly permitting and regulatory requirements can pose a heavy burden, particularly for small operators.
This April, the commission will vote on the Implementation Plan, which constitutes the actual language in the county code.
The county submitted its version of the I.P. in 2013, and last October, commission staffers sent edits. Since November, agriculturalists and environmentalists—including representatives from the Marin Conservation League,
the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, the Marin County Farm Bureau, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and the University of California Cooperative Extension—have met for two work sessions, under the auspices of the M.C.L.’s Agricultural Land Use Committee.
Attendees then provided input to commission staffers at a meeting on Friday.
Judy Teichman, one of the committee co-chairs, said the idea for the work sessions came from Amy Trainer, the head of the E.A.C. The meetings, she went on, helped “everyone in the room understand what the facts are.”
Some of the changes to the implementation plan proposed by commission staff will affect agriculture, based on revised definitions and what activities are principally permitted uses. Activities that are principally permitted require permits that can be appealed to the county government; however, they cannot be appealed to the coastal commission.
One of the concerns raised at the work sessions revolved around the definition of agriculture. The county’s definition includes agricultural production as well as facilities. The commission added that facilities need to be “necessary” to meet the definition.
It’s one word, but David Lewis, the director of the University of California’s Cooperative Extension in Marin, said that the term feels confusing and restrictive; to him, it narrows the scope for what facilities would be considered a principally permitted use.
County Supervisor Steve Kinsey isn’t a fan, either. “I think the term “necessary” is unnecessary. I think it adds confusion. What someone thinks is necessary isn’t the same as someone else. The same language, without that added in, achieves the primary policy purpose,” he told the Light.
For her part, Ms. Trainer supports adding the term. “The ‘necessary for’ standard is important to ensure that there is a nexus between the proposed development—like a processing facility—and the agricultural production of that land,” she said.
The commission staff added that a change in the use of agricultural lands—for instance, from grazing to row crops—constitutes new development and needs a permit. According to Mr. Lewis, that’s a financial burden, and discouraging to new farmers who sometimes find small portions of land to lease to ranchers for small-scale row cropping.
Mr. Kinsey agreed, though he said that some in Marin are worried about vines taking over the landscape, especially if climate changes warm the coast or “bright minds at the University of California find a way to do foggy grape growing.” In that case, there might be a way to ask for a permit for specific kinds of changes, he said.
Some at last week’s session wondered if it should be the actions involved in conversions—like increased water use, new water lines or terracing—that trigger a permit, not simply different agricultural activity. Others took issue with a requirement that farmers or ranchers get a permit to work lands that haven’t been used in the past 10 years. They thought maybe it should be longer, perhaps 20 years or more.
Then there is the question of what constitutes “grading.” The county proposed that moving 150 cubic yards of land would require a permit, but commission staff struck out the number, leading Jack Liebster, a senior county planner in charge of the update, to wonder if “scuffing your shoe is development,” he told the Light.
Mr. Liebster and Ms. Trainer want a number put back in. Her group supported a threshold of 50 cubic yards, or about five dump truck loads.
Many also want onsite processing facilities to be considered a principal permitted use if they process products from around Marin and even Sonoma. The L.U.P. approved by the commission included provisions to allow products from the “farmshed.” But the term wasn’t defined, and commission staff proposed that products have to come from the farm where the facility is located, or a farm owned by the same person.
Mr. Liebster said it appeared the “farmshed” didn’t get carried over into the I.P., but that county and commission staffs were working on it. “We do not want to have a proliferation of small processing facilities on every ranch. That doesn’t make sense,” he said.
Coastal staffers said they will take another look at the issues brought by local groups. “Hopefully,” Mr. Liebster said, “we’ll be able to resolve these issues prior to the April hearing.” Once the commission votes on the I.P. in April, the entire Local Coastal Program will go back to the Board of Supervisors.
When the supervisors vote, they can’t tweak the plan; they must accept or reject it. Mr. Liebster said supervisors might reject the program based on the L.U.P., and then offer a “resubmittal.”
One provision supervisors might take issue with in the L.U.P. is a limit on the number of homes that can be built on lands owned by one person; that limit appears to apply not just to contiguous lots, but to all agricultural land owned by one person. “It actually isn’t clear—within the coastal zone? In the county?…We think there needs to be clarification,” he said.
If the county does reject the program and resubmits it, “It’s as though it was starting over again, but in operation it won’t be,” Mr. Liebster said. “Because we agreed to a lot and met procedural requirements, and a resubmittal would simply focus on those issues that need to be worked out,” he said.
Mr. Kinsey, who is also the chair of the coastal commission, hopes to avoid that. “My goal is to resolve these things without having to reject the L.U.P. We’ll know that better, obviously, when the staff report [on the I.P.] comes out,” he said.