Uniform Chaos

Debate Rages over Agricultural Policy Reform

by Ethan Stewart

It took nearly a year, but 3rd District Supervisor Brooks
Firestone finally gave his Santa Ynez Valley constituents the
Uniform Rules public workshop they’ve been asking for. More than
100 landowners, farmers, ranchers, and environmentalists turned out
Tuesday night at the Veterans’ Memorial Building in Solvang to
listen to Firestone and county staff spell out the details of the
proposed Uniform Rules changes and their implications for the
approximately 550,000 acres of local Williamson Act agricultural
land they govern. The two-and-a-half hour hearing was meant to be
part lecture and part question-and-answer, but the meeting quickly
degenerated into a broad and often heated discussion about the
future of agriculture — similar to a county supervisors’ hearing on
the same subject last week. Most vocal were critics who claim
county policy has undergone a shift that could open the door for
the development of traditional open spaces.

Uniform Rules are the county codes that govern what types of
building and practices are permissible on Williamson Act land.
Since the mid ’60s, the Williamson Act has provided tax breaks for
farmers willing to enter into 10-year renewable contracts with the
state’s Department of Conservation (DOC); the contracts stipulate
that the landowners will keep their land in agriculture in exchange
for the tax benefits. However, these rules haven’t been updated
since 1984, and after a 2001 DOC audit of the county found them to
be insufficient, the road toward reform began. Along the way,
taking into account the many ways that local ag has changed in the
past two decades and the fact that more and more landowners are
opting out of Williamson Act contracts — according to the county,
more than 44,000 acres are slated to be removed from such contracts
in the next 10 years — the potential reforms ultimately went beyond
the DOC’s mandates.