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AUGUST 1993 I II I I · FII I I AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Agricultural Zoning: Managing Growth, Protecting Farms By Tom Daniels Farmland protection has come to be recognized as a key ingredient in the overall effor~ to manage growth. More than 400 local govern- ments now employ agricultural zoning both to manage growth and to protect farmland. Hawaii, Oregon, and Wisconsin have enacted statewide zoning programs that emphasize agricultural zoning. Zoning's primary purpose is to separate conflicting land uses. Local governments use agricultural zoning to promote the continu- ation ofagricukural activities in suitable areas and to minimize residential land uses that are incompatible with farming. In rural areas, agricultural zoning usually reflects the current land use and often the "highest and best" use. But agricultural zoning is fre- quently found in the rural-urban fringe, a band of land 15 to 40 miles outside major metropolitan centers where farming is giving way m residential, commercial, and industrial development. In the fringe areas, man), residents do not understand that agriculture today is essentially an industrial land use. Although the sight of green pastures and rolling cropland is aesthetically pleasing, people who move to the country to be next to farmland are often in for a rode awakening. The sound of heavy farm equipment late at night or very early in the morning does not fit in with the rural idyll. Nor does the smell of manure or drifting chemical sprays or clouds of dust. And slow-moving farm machinery, can de up traffic. Agricultural zoning has become popular as a Iow-cost approach to growth management~ It is also the foundation for successful purchase-of-devdlopment-rights (PDR) and transfer-of-develop- merit-rights (TDR) programs, such as in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Montgomery Count),, Maryland. As part ora comprehensive planning strategy, agricultural zoning can be the first line of defense in farmland protection. Enough farms and farmland must be placed under agricultural zoning to create a "critical mass" that can enable farm-support businesses to remain profitable. Agricultural zoning should also limit the number of nonfarm uses allowed. For example, some ordinances allow golf courses as an outright permitted use. A more immediate concern is how many nonfarm residences will be permitted. The test of the strictness of an agricultural zoning ordinance is how much nonresidential development it will allow. This is also a test of how reasonable the ordinance is in striking a balance between farmland protection and allowing the land- owner some potential for nonfarm development. This balance, in turn, depends on three factors: local politics (whether local citizens want to protect farmland and whether local officials will enact and fund programs for land-use regulation and land protection); how state courts regard agricultural zoning (as a government taking of property value or as a legitimate use of government police power to protect the public health, safety, and. welfare); and the expectations of farmland owners concerning what they can or cannot do with their land. Local citizens together with local officials and planners need to decide on land-use goals for the community. Do they want fannland protection or open space protection? The appropriate techniques will depend on the answer. If local elected officials are wary of passing strict land-use ordinances, and if the courts are reluctant to uphold agricultural zoning, then farmland will be converted to a nonfarm use sooner rather than later. If farmland owners have long harbored notions of selling their land for "top-dollar" nonfarm uses, then enacting Lancaster County, Pennsylvania agricultural zoning may be politically di~cult unless some kind of compensation, through property tax breaks or purchase of develop- ment rights or both, is offered. Some farmland owners argue that land-use restrictions take away their equity. This is not altogether accurate. Equity is what was paid for the land plus mortage principal payments. Equity does not include anticlp.ated future value iff a nonfarm use. Government is under no obligation to guarantee a landowner's capital gain. Courts in Oregon and Pennsylvania have upheld agricultural zoning, and it has 'not been challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court. Even the recent Supreme Court decisions in First£vangelical Lutheran Church v. Coumy of Los Angeles and Noffan v. California Coastal Commission have not resulted in an assault on agricultural zoning ordinances as some planners feared. Nonetheless, agricultural zoning.has not fared well in some states such as Massachusetts, where two-acre zoning is the standard. What passes for agricultural zoning is really large-lot residential zoning