Hollister
– The San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to
loosen restrictions protecting prime agricultural land from
residential development.
Hollister – The San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to loosen restrictions protecting prime agricultural land from residential development.
County Planning Director Art Henriques said the new rules give the supervisors and the county Planning Commission more flexibility than the previous ordinance, which essentially prohibited residential development on the highest-quality farm land.
The new ordinance creates a trading system in which landowners can build homes on grade one soil – the highest quality – if they create an agricultural preserve of similar size elsewhere.
“The goal is that there’s no net loss of prime ag land,” Henriques said.
The revised ordinance also allows exemptions for soils that do not have a documented long-term agricultural use. Henriques said that, like the trading system, this exemption will give the county some flexibility without creating a big loophole.
“The intent is not for someone to pull an orchard out and propose a subdivision the next year,” Henriques said.
The supervisors were spurred into action by developer Joe Zanger and his business partners at Casa de Fruta. In 2004, Zanger approached the county about adding four units to his Pacheco Creek Estates subdivision, but the approval process hit a snag when a small quantity of grade one soil was discovered on the land.
Now that there’s a new ordinance in place, Zanger can bring his project forward for approval at the next meeting of the Board of Supervisors.
“I think you saw some good government there this morning,” Zanger said.
He added that the changes could actually save agricultural land, because minor subdivisions – developments with two, three, or four units – as well as major subdivisions can now be clustered as planned unit developments. That creates more opportunities to build housing at a higher density and avoid building on farmland, Zanger said.
However, Supervisor Pat Loe, the only board member to vote against the changes, said allowing smaller developments to cluster is a bad idea.
“If you’re only clustering two units, you’re not really saving any land,” she said.
When the changes were proposed in March, San Benito County Farm Bureau President George Bonacich said that while protecting farmland is important, it makes sense to address development questions on a case-by-case basis.
Henriques said the county Planning Commission will decide whether projects meet the exemption requirements. Those decisions can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors, he said.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
