The 1994 legislation sponsored by Sen. Leonard Blackham came more than 18 months before Gov. Mike Leavitt's Growth Summit added the term "open space" to the Utah vernacular.
Blackham, R-Moroni, introduced his idea of preserving farms and ranches two years before the state's Open Lands Commission - now the Utah Critical Lands Conservation Committee - was even formed. The group recently issued a report spelling out ways local governments and others could plan for conservation.Now, Blackham's and others' early efforts, in the form of the 3-year-old law allowing counties to create agriculture protection areas, are beginning to pay dividends.
"It helped move the discussion on open space to the forefront," Blackham said. "This is a nonfinancial way to preserve farmland in the communities."
Agriculture protection areas, although met with hostility in some parts, are being formed from Cache County to Iron County and many communities in between.
The protection areas don't put a stop to all development in rural areas. What they do, however, is encourage farmers and ranchers by freezing zoning, slowing condemnation efforts and protecting them from nuisance lawsuits.
"If you are not violating health codes and you're following standard agriculture practices, it's an absolute protection against nuisance lawsuits," said Jerry Grover, a Utah County commissioner who grew up on a farm in Lake Shore.
As Utah's residential and business growth expands into traditionally agricultural areas, homeowners and farmers are finding they can't always coexist peacefully. When confrontations escalate, it's often farmers and ranchers who lose or give up, even if they were there first.
Many agriculture producers are finding out that including their property in an agriculture protection area is a key to maintaining their operations at a time when their land is worth significantly more as a potential development than it is as a farm.
Fifth-generation ranchers
The family of former state Sen. Eldon Money has been running a cattle operation in southwestern Utah County since soon after white settlers first arrived in the area.
Money's grandfather, A.T. Money, probably did things much the same way in the 1860s as Eldon and his son, Brent, do today. In the winter, the Moneys are feeding cattle on their 500-acre operation by 7 a.m. - before they've even eaten breakfast themselves.
"That cow right there, she's looking for a place to calve," Brent points out as he drives a feed truck through a muddy field early one morning recently.
Brent stops the truck briefly so his father can throw feed to the cattle. One cow doesn't wait but begins chewing away at the bale sitting on the truck.
Brent, Eldon's only son, has been working with cattle since he could first walk. As the only boy in the family, Brent spent several winters feeding the cattle by himself while his father served in the Legislature.
Now, Brent reflects on his father's efforts to designate between 4,000 and 5,000 acres outside Spanish Fork an agriculture protection area. The area would encompass nearly the entire unincorporated Utah County community known as Palmyra.
It makes sense that the area be considered agricultural, Brent says, since the land has been used for agriculture production for more than a century. The Moneys are friendly neighbors, but they want new residents to know they plan to continue standard agricultural practices.
"That's the worst part," Brent said. "When people move in, they want to be in a rural area, but they've got to understand they'll get things they won't get in a city."
Some of those things are dust, manure, nocturnal noise from animals or farm equipment and overflowing septic tanks or irrigation ditches.
"You've got people moving out here, and they want city life," Eldon said. "The more people move in, the more they're going to start complaining."
As subdivisions continue to encroach on farmland not just in Palmyra but throughout the state, complaints against farmers can quickly escalate into lawsuits. It's from just such demoralizing and potentially devastating suits the agriculture protection areas protect farmers and ranchers.
For the Moneys, having their land declared part of an agriculture protection area also serves notice that they plan to continue cattle ranching. Brent is committed to the ranching life, and he has a son who represents the fifth generation of Moneys in Palmyra.
"It all depends on whether people shove us out," Eldon Money said.
How it works
Under the law written in 1994, property owners may file an application with the county for protection area status if they meet several conditions.
The land has to be currently in use for agriculture production. In addition, the property must be zoned for agricultural use.
The law says potential agriculture protection areas also should be evaluated based on "the extent and nature of existing or proposed farm improvements and anticipated trends in agricultural and technological conditions."
The names of all property owners within the proposed protection area and the tax parcel number of each property must accompany applications. Usually, the application is filed with the county's planning department or, in some cases, the county clerk's office.
The law also allows for a reasonable fee to be required with each application. In Utah County, the fee is $250, which officials say barely covers the costs associated with processing applications.
The proposal is referred to both the county's planning commission and an Agriculture Protection Area Advisory Board, which consists of no more than five members from the board of supervisors of each county's soil conservation district.
Both the advisory board and the planning commission evaluate the feasibility of the proposal and submit recommendations to the county commission or county council within 45 days.
Commissioners then must publish notices of the proposal and hold a public hearing. They can then either reject or accept the proposal.
If created, an agriculture protection area remains effective for 20 years, after which the county must review the area's status. Property owners within the area can opt out and adjacent property owners can be included with the approval of the advisory board, planning commission and county commissioners.
Counties have the authority to set a minimum acreage requirement for the areas. In Utah County, the minimum requirement is 40 acres, with some exceptions allowed. Other counties have set minimums of five or 10 acres.
Once a protection area is created, local governments cannot change the zoning designation within the area unless they get written approval from all landowners in the protection area.
Also, local government officials cannot exercise the right of eminent domain without approval from county commissioners and the Agriculture Protection Area Advisory Board.
While the application process may seem like a hassle, officials say the protection afforded is worth it.
"It's one of the toughest things to get the word out and get the agriculture producers to actually go in and fill out an application," said Tyce Palmer, zone coordinator for seven soil conservation districts in Washington, Iron, Beaver, Garfield and Kane counties.
"But it can surely be used as a positive tool if a farmer's experiencing encroachment."
Dave Yardley, Iron County clerk, has processed three successful applications since the county passed its protection area ordinance in 1995: a 40-acre parcel including a veterinary clinic, a 370-acre farm owned by Southern Utah University and a 12,000-acre livestock operation.
"I think the word is finally getting out," Yardley said. "People are understanding what it is and what it does."
Yardley said Iron County property owners have about 10 more applications for agriculture protection areas in the works. Interest seems to be growing in relationship to the number of new houses beginning to encroach on farms and ranches.
"Cedar City is in such a growth boom now that a lot of the subdivisions that have been there for 20 or 30 years are starting to get people in them," Yardley said.
An amendment pushed through the Legislature last year by Money and others requires developers of adjacent property to notify potential buyers of an agricultural protection area.
That way, homeowners in a new subdivision next to a poultry farm, for example, can't file a nuisance lawsuit and claim they didn't know there would be noisy or foul-smelling chickens nearby.
Requiring developers to provide prior notice of an agriculture protection area is what Dean Miner, Utah County agriculture agent with the Utah State University Extension Service, calls a "truth-in-advertising" clause.
"If you buy a piece of property in the wintertime, you might not realize what goes on in the summer," Miner said.
Miner said baling hay at 4 a.m. might be a nuisance for neighbors but imperative for a farmer. He said many like the protection area law because it allows farmers and ranchers a fail-safe protection in court, as long as they use normal farming methods that pose no public health or safety risks and don't break any laws.
In some counties, officials have allowed protection areas to be created by default. The law states that an application is automatically approved after 120 days if county officials haven't done anything with it.
In Millard County, for example, officials didn't pass an ordinance dealing with agriculture protection areas. About a dozen applications were turned in, and the protection areas were created without action being taken.
Marking their territory
Eldon Money vigorously supported the measure in the 1994 Utah Legislature that allowed counties to create agriculture protection areas. Not only did Money's involvement help the law pass, but it also got Utah County jump-started on the idea of creating protection areas.
Early in 1995, Utah County became one of the first counties in the state to draft ordinances dealing with the creation of agriculture protection areas. Since then, four protection areas have been created with several more - including an ambitious plan by Money - in the works.
Utah County has long been one of the most productive agriculture areas in the state. Now, it's Utah's second-most-populous county and one of the fastest growing. As the cities fill up, developers are beginning to look for land in rural areas.
"You can literally see farms disappearing before your eyes," Miner said.
Money doesn't see an agriculture protection area as a way of thwarting development, just a method to control it. He also says it affords farmers and ranchers some insulation against the assault by transplanted city folks.
"It doesn't stop (property owners) from selling their ground," he said. "It's just that when people move in, they've got to realize it's an agricultural area."
Money has been working for several years to get all property owners in Palmyra to join a single, mammoth agriculture protection area. Nearly all the property owners are convinced it's a good idea, but the application process has become stalled in minutiae.
Money now finds himself in the ironic position of being told by county officials what he can and can't do under a law he helped push through the Legislature.
Utah County officials have told Money he must get legal descriptions for each parcel of land he intends to include in the protection area. They say it's necessary to keep roads, canals and certain property easements out of the protection area.
"It's very cumbersome and almost impossible to do because of the many non-agricultural pieces of land," Miner said.
Money wants to simply draw lines around the outer edges of Palmyra and have everything inside the resulting square declared a protection area. If any property owners don't want to be included, they can simply opt out, he says.
"You've got to allow things other than land being farmed to be included in an agriculture protection area," said Buck Rose, Utah County senior planner. Rose, who has worked with Money on the project, said the problem is that state law allows only land currently in a green belt to be included in a protection area.
Money plans to try to persuade the Legislature to amend the law. Blackham said an effort will be made this session to fine tune the law to facilitate projects such as Money's.
In fact, Blackham said, the intent of the original legislation was that coalitions of property owners would band together to form large protection areas rather than just single parcels.
Money believes all of Palmyra - which includes essentially everything west and north of Spanish Fork to Utah Lake - will one day be designated an agriculture protection area.
He also thinks the nearby areas of Leland, Lake Shore and Benjamin should become large agriculture protection areas. He and others hope it happens before it's too late and Utah County begins to resemble Salt Lake County's wall-to-wall development.
"When the itch gets bad enough, you've already been bit by the mosquito," Miner said, referring to the tendency of cities and counties not to take action until a problem gets too big to handle.
Agriculture vs. property rights
While government officials want to protect farmland, that desire apparently isn't strong enough to push for more drastic measures that would tell farmers what they can do with their property. Protection areas are seen by many as a compromise that afford some preservation but don't infringe on property rights.
"There's the desire to keep land in production agriculture, and there's an equally strong desire to protect personal property rights," Miner said. "The agriculture protection area is really an attempt to walk a fine line between those two goals."
Miner said he believes farmers should be encouraged to continue farming if they desire to do so, but getting too involved (i.e. purchasing land or securing conservation easements) is full of pitfalls for government.
While farmers and ranchers want protection from nuisance lawsuits, zoning changes and condemnation efforts, those same farmers and ranchers want to be able to sell their land for a good price to a developer if the time comes.
"That's the argument that always goes on," Grover said. "People want the rural lifestyle yet they want to be able to sell their property."
Many agriculture producers see the property they own as the key to their retirement incomes. Unless the farmer has children who want to continue working the land, he sometimes opts to sell to developers in order to support his family in the post-farming years.
Although neighboring farmers might be interested in purchasing the land to expand their operations, the property is worth much more as a potential development than it is as farmland. Once a single farmer sells, it's hard to plug the proverbial hole in the dam with just fingers.
"When you let anybody out of an agriculture protection area at any time, you're going to bring subdivisions in around the farms," Rose said. "Ultimately, you force them all to look at retirement. It's just a matter of time."
Nearly everyone agrees preserving farmland hinges on one thing. It's the economy, stupid.
"It boils down to money," Grover said. "You can talk about all the aesthetics you want, but you've got to look at what really drives development."
Grover is ambivalent about the ability of agriculture protection areas to preserve traditionally strong agricultural communities in counties like Utah.
"It's just another tool to encourage those interested in farming to stay in farming," he said. "It's not the answer to preserve all open space, but I don't know what is short of buying it."
"My guess is economics will roll over (preserving farmland) anyway," he said.
Farms as open space
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Commissioner of Agriculture Cary Peterson have sweeping visions of controlling development and preserving open space. Creating agriculture protection areas is just one component of that vision.
"(A protection area) is one of maybe a dozen tools that are available to us," Peterson said. "I think it gives notice to the county planning authority and local land-use planners that here's an area they should stay away from."
Peterson said farms are important because they have production capacities.
"I think it's very critical to our future to identify resource lands," he said. "Those are the kinds of spaces where our water, food and energy come from."
The Utah Critical Lands Conservation Committee, which the governor created last May as the Open Lands Committee, issued a report last month in which it identified tools, techniques and initiatives in the effort to conserve land.
The report names eight options for land acquisition and 11 options for administrative measures to preserve open lands. One of those options is creation of agriculture protection areas.
Because agriculture protection areas aren't the composite answer to the preserving farms and ranches, many future efforts will likely be aimed at the same goal.
On Capitol Hill right now, a measure has been introduced by Rep. Evan L. Olsen, R-Young Ward. The bill would let voters decide whether to increase sales tax by one-eighth of a cent to fund farmland protection efforts.
With revenues generated from the measure, local governments would be able to purchase easements or development rights to food-growing farmland.
In the future, more effective methods might be introduced to preserve agriculture areas. But Blackham's bill, as one of the first efforts in the recent push for preservation, will likely influence much of what happens.
"In some communities, it's kind of been the focal point for leading some discussion on planning and zoning issues," Blackham said.
"I don't think there's any question as we've brought the issue up, it's increased awareness of agriculture protection. I feel pretty positive about that."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Protecting farmland
Agriculture protection areas in several Utah counties:
COUNTY ORDINANCE # OF AREAS ACRES
Cache Being developed 0 0
Davis No 0 0
Garfield Yes 0 0
Iron Yes 3 12,410
Juab No 0 0
Salt Lake No 0 0
Summit Yes 1 pending final OK 13
Utah Yes 4 426
Wasatch No 0 0
Washington Yes 1 200