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Charged with revisiting agricultural policy changes previously rejected by the San Benito County Board of Supervisors, a new Ag Zoning Committee was appointed by the board at its Aug. 12 meeting.
The new group will draft new rules on subdividing land and setting setbacks between grazing areas and neighboring crops and reevaluate policy changes rejected two months earlier following feedback from farmers and ranchers.
Initially planned as an 11-member body with nearly half of its seats going to members of the agricultural industry, the committee was expanded to 13. Its final makeup adds more representation from land preservation groups and reduces the proportion of ag industry seats.
Farmers “are the backbone of our economy, and their expertise is indispensable in the work of this committee,” local environmental advocate Seth Capron said during the meeting before he was appointed to the committee. “But I don’t think it’s appropriate for ag and real estate to dominate the committee the way it’s been set up.”
The committee was first proposed on June 10, when supervisors unanimously rejected a proposal to increase the minimum lot size for subdividing agricultural, rangeland and rural parcels. The committee’s key goal is to address what Supervisors Kollin Kosmicki and Dom Zanger have called the “five-acre problem.”
Under current zoning rules, parcels designated as Agricultural Productive—intended primarily for farming—can be subdivided starting at 10 acres, with a minimum lot size of five acres. Kosmicki and Zanger have argued that this threshold allows land meant for farming to be designated for other uses.
The committee will also take up a new livestock-crop setback proposal for food safety purposes. The county is suggesting an 800-foot buffer between livestock areas and adjacent commercial crop fields, which could be reduced to 300 feet if the owner installs a barrier and receives approval from the agricultural commissioner, to prevent animal encroachment.
The county received 11 applications for the committee from representatives of the agricultural, land conservation and real estate sectors. The original plan aimed for 11 members: five from agriculture, two supervisors, one from land conservation, and one from real estate.
But after a proposal from Capron, the board accepted all 11 applicants and expanded the committee to 13 members, including the two supervisors.
Capron told the supervisors the committee’s original design was “very lopsided,” with a majority of seats going to the ag industry. Agricultural zoning, he argued, affects the entire county and should include more voices. “I mean, we all eat,” he said.
“If the board was re-examining the zoning regulations for gas stations in the county, I don’t think that you would want to select a committee that was a majority gas station operators,” Capron said. Though he praised local farmers’ efforts for protecting farmland, Capron said they also have “a vested interest in keeping flexibility, and what they do with their land in the future doesn’t necessarily always align with public policy.”
Capron encouraged the board to accept all applicants, a proposal that was backed by two more public commenters and Supervisor Mindy Sotelo. The rest of the board concurred.
Kosmicki and Zanger were chosen as the board’s representatives. Sotelo had initially nominated Supervisor Angela Curro, who accepted but deferred to Zanger, noting that his district contains most of the county’s five-acre parcels.
Curro emphasized that the issue can’t be solved with a “one-size-fits-all” approach or a fixed acreage number. The county, she said, needed to focus on where five-acre parcels have become a problem and also where changes aren’t realistic.
“It’s not a numbers game,” she said. “It’s how do we make it fit our community and preserve the ag land, but sustain the value of our properties at the same time. We have to talk about the maps, and when we look at the maps, you’ll see there are areas where you cannot put restrictions of that level without devaluing properties.”
The Ag Zoning Committee meetings will be open to the public.
Here are its at-large members:
Agriculture
- Dave Brigantino, San Benito Agricultural Land Trust
- Tony Alameda, TopFlavor Farms
- Stan Pura, Taylor Farms
- Mark Wright, Filice Farms.
- Russel Tobias, San Benito County Cattlemen’s Association
Land preservation
- Seth Capron, environmental advocate
- Lynn Overtree, San Benito Agricultural Land Trust
- Jessica Wohlander, Green Foothills
- Paul Hain, San Benito Agricultural Land Trust
Real estate
- Michael Brigantino, San Benito County Association of Realtors
- Jason Noble, San Benito County Association of Realtors
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