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Decades after Sonoma County enlisted farmers in the battle against urban sprawl, rural residents are now seeking relief from agriculture August 18, 2002 By
TOM CHORNEAU In the mid-1970s, when urban sprawl threatened to overwhelm Sonoma County's countryside, planners charged with managing growth adopted a simple refrain: "Embrace the farmer, agriculture will save us." Today, after an expanding wine industry has transformed the landscape, a new refrain is coming from rural neighborhoods with a decidedly different perspective: "Enough already, save us from agriculture." The call for new farming regulations comes from all corners: Complaints in the Dry Creek Valley over Gallo's huge vineyard and winery operations; questions in the west county over water consumption by new vineyards converted from fruit orchards; concerns in the Sonoma Valley about traffic and tourism from new hotels and restaurants. While pressure is growing on Sonoma County supervisors to set new rules for agriculture, board members are reluctant to revise the decades-old policies that utilize farms as a tool in the struggle against sprawl. The issue comes to the board this week as supervisors consider the first draft of proposed changes to the county's general plan developed by citizen groups over the past year. It is the midpoint of a three-year process to update the county's land-use blueprint that will attempt to resolve the conflict between rural residents who want to preserve the natural landscape and the growing demands of agriculture. At the center of the debate is the county's wine industry, which has converted thousands of acres of woodlands and hillsides into vineyards over the last decade with little governmental oversight. "Agriculture needs to come in for more scrutiny than it has historically," said Brock Dolman, a wildlife biologist at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. "Whether it is apples or grazing or logging -- every human development practice is occurring somewhere in the uplands of a watershed," he said. "We need to reconsider how agricultural activities can be done without being so impactful on the environment."
Restricting the size and shape of new wineries and farm processing plants. Regulating farmers' ability to convert wild land and open space to crops. Limiting the building of hotels and inns in rural areas. Controlling farm operations around residential neighbors in agricultural zones.
But supervisors say they must be convinced that such environmental restrictions outweigh the value that agriculture brings to sustaining the lifestyle of the county. "Preservation of the agriculture economy is the cornerstone of this county and ultimately will protect what we have," said Supervisor Tim Smith. "Someone will have to make the case that restrictions of agriculture are based on legitimate environmental concerns. This is not to say that ground-water resources and endangered species issues are not to be taken seriously." Indeed, some of those who lived through the land-use wars of the 1970s and 1980s warn that the threat of sprawl is still real, and that undermining farm protections is a big gamble. "There are many people today who view agriculture as the problem and not as the solution, which is a view that I believe carries a great deal of risk," said Eric Koenigshofer, a Santa Rosa attorney and a Sonoma County supervisor from 1976 until 1980. "It's a totally different viewpoint than the one we held when the general plan was first adopted," he said. "There was an urgency at the time over avoiding the loss of agriculture to sprawl. Now there is a totally different set of concerns that I think need to be looked at very carefully before acted on." Cities and counties are required by state law to adopt a general plan to guide development decisions. Although there is no specific requirement that the plans be updated over any period of time, most jurisdictions take up the issue at least every 10 years. The Sonoma County plan was first adopted in 1979 and contained two fundamental goals: Direct new housing growth inside cities and protect existing agriculture. A majority of the supervisors believe the program has worked well and point to the thousands of acres of open space that still surround the county's nine cities as well as the diverse agricultural industry. But the sudden explosion of the wine industry has dramatically changed the landscape -- both politically and physically. Although the current recession has cooled the wine industry over the past year, the slowdown follows several record years of expansion. In 1990, there were only about 23,000 acres of vineyards in Sonoma County; today the figure has more than doubled to 58,000. The environmental impacts of the planting boom have been immense. Thousands of acres of oak woodlands and conifer forests have been cleared and wildlife displaced. Hundreds of deep wells have been dug and ground-water supplies altered. In some places, growers have brought in massive tractors and other machinery to reshape entire hillsides to better accommodate grapes. "For me, its a question of sustainability," said John Blayney, a retired urban planner and environmental activist who lives in Sonoma Valley. "What that means is that we don't allow any more people, or grapes or anything else into the county that cannot be supported with our limited resources. It means taking care of the watershed, not clearing woodlands, and protecting the hillsides. I'm concerned that our present plan doesn't reflect this concept, and it's something we need to pay attention to." Lex McCorvey, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, said his organization is willing to consider new ways of doing business, but growers are likely to oppose most of the ideas proposed so far. "I think we are going to have to be more understanding in the future of our neighbors, but the question is really a larger one for the community," he said. "If we truly want agriculture here, which provides open space and beauty as well as economic strength, sacrifices have to be made." McCorvey said that most farmers view the existing general plan as favorable to agriculture, and he points out that farmers already comply with a long list of land-use regulations as the result of clean water mandates and recent protections given threatened salmon. Still, as far as the county is concerned, farmers are generally left alone to tend their crops without permits or interference from the planning department. They have on the books a distinct "right to farm," which limits the kinds of complaints that neighbors can raise over farm operations, including noise and odors. Perhaps even more important was the decision to adopt rules that make it hard for builders to subdivide cheap land in the outlying areas for big housing developments. Along with the general plan's protections afforded farmers, voters countywide have passed measures that reinforce the city-centered growth policy. Urban growth boundaries have been adopted by seven cities in the county, and voters 10 years ago also voted for a quarter-cent sales tax for an open space program aimed at permanently protecting rural and scenic areas. Supervisor Mike Reilly, the board's leading environmentalist, said that while he is willing to consider new controls on farming, the revisions are not likely to be dramatic. "For the most part, people in agriculture are good stewards of the land, and any new regulations we might consider probably won't have an impact on them," he said. "For those that are not good stewards, then maybe those rules will be significant." You
can reach Staff Writer Tom Chorneau at 521-5214 or tchorneau@pressdemocrat.com.
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