Lea este artículo en español aquí.
Facing a packed room of concerned farmers and ranchers, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors on June 10 unanimously denied a proposal that would have overhauled local agricultural zoning rules.
The plan would have increased the minimum lot size required to subdivide farmland, changing rules that have been in place for more than 50 years.
The proposal was largely opposed by landowners who urged the board to reject it. That pressure ultimately led the board to reject the proposal and send it to a new committee for review. The committee will consist of two supervisors, stakeholder organizations including the Farm Bureau, San Benito CattleWomen, and the San Benito Agricultural Land Trust, and other stakeholders involved in shaping the county’s Ag Element, a long-term policy document currently in development.
“That’s what local government is supposed to be all about,” Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said.
Right now, parcels zoned Agricultural Rangeland and used for grazing can be subdivided if they’re at least 80 acres and split into minimum lot sizes of 40 acres. Agricultural Productive land can be split starting at 10 acres into minimum lot sizes of five acres. Rural zoning, meant for very low density housing, allows minimum five-acre lots. Rural Transitional zoning—designed as a buffer between farmland and residential areas—permits subdivisions into lots as small as 2.5 acres.
Under the proposed changes, most of those acreage thresholds would have increased. Agricultural Rangeland would have needed a minimum of 320 acres to subdivide into minimum 160-acre lots. Agricultural Productive land would have needed at least 80 acres to subdivide into minimum 40-acre lots. Rural zoning would have remained unchanged, but the minimum lot size for Rural Transitional would have doubled to five acres.
Farmers and ranchers said the change would devalue their land and threaten their ability to finance operations.
“Increasing the parcel size to 40 acres diminishes property values,” said Kay Filice, a stakeholder in the Ag Element process and one of 19 public speakers at the meeting. “It reduces borrowing power and it makes farming even more difficult than it already is.”
Filice also told the board that the change would also affect farmers’ ability to finance their operations in an industry beset with uncertainty.
“The uncertainty of labor and of the weather is always a wild card,” she said. “We don’t control any of these factors. The only thing we have is our land. Our land is the one constant, the one thing we can depend on and it’s our biggest asset when times get tough.”
“When we have a bad year—and we do—we still have our land, our loan payments to make,” she continued. “Many of us are paying on 10-plus-year loans that we have in place where we’ve purchased ag property over the years. We’re looking at borrowing on our credit, leveraging our land, which is only possible if the land retains its value.”
Principal planner Arielle Goodspeed confirmed that the zoning changes could impact property values. She said County Assessor Tom Slavich had warned that losing subdivision rights for those parcels that don’t meet the proposed thresholds could end up reducing their price.
“The zoning changes would have a dramatic impact on the valuation of potentially subdivisible parcels,” she said. “This will affect current values, as well as loss of potential future values from subdividable lots.”
Supervisors Dom Zanger and Kosmicki said they still believe the issue needs to be addressed, even if the current proposal is off the table.
“Five-acre parcels near farmland do pose lots of issues,” Zanger said. “We all know that once farmland gets developed, it’s never going back. So this only moves in one direction: a perpetual, slight loss of farmland over time.”
Supervisors Angela Curro and Mindy Sotelo agreed with rejecting the proposal but pushed for broader community representation on the committee. They also said the subdivision issue should continue to be addressed through the Ag Element process.
“I appreciate Supervisor (Ignacio) Velazquez agreeing that we need to take time,” she said of her board colleague. “I don’t feel like that’s where we were in March of this year.”
Back in March, a board majority including Kosmicki, Zanger and Velazquez directed staff to bring the subdivision rule change to the Ag Element meetings for public input. Most stakeholders opposed the change during a brief discussion at the April 15 Ag Element meeting.
Originally, the proposed minimum lot size for Agricultural Productive was to increase from five acres to 20 acres per new lot. But on May 21, the Planning Commission unanimously increased that to 40 acres and sent it to the board.
The creation and final structure of the new committee to review subdivision rules will be discussed at a future meeting.
Supervisors OK fire contract
Also on June 10, the supervisors voted 4-1 to amend its fire services contract with the city of Hollister, adding $1.1 million to the cost and bringing the total to $3.3 million with a 3% annual increase. The board also agreed to use the four-year contract extension period, which runs through June 2029, to explore the feasibility of a countywide fire district.
In this new deal, Hollister reduced its original proposal by nearly $3 million. “Any good deal requires that all sides give something up,” said Kosmicki. “In this case, all sides have given something up. It is a good deal.”
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. It is expensive to produce local news and community support is what keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service, nonprofit news.
You must be logged in to post a comment.