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Part of Farmland Preservation in Thurston County
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FARMLAND PRESERVATION IN THURSTON COUNTY
by
Jeffrey R. Fisher
A Thesis: Essay of Distinction
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Study
The Evergreen State College
June 2009
© 2009 by Jeffrey R. Fisher. All rights reserved.
This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Study Degree
by
Jeffrey R. Fisher
has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by
________________________
Carolyn Dobbs
Member of the Faculty
________________________
Date
-ABSTRACT-
FARMLAND PRESERVATION IN THURSTON COUNTY
Jeffrey R. Fisher
Thurston County is a metropolitan county in Western Washington on the south
end of Puget Sound that possesses an agricultural economy in transition and a
growing population. Ever present on the horizon is the threat of development and
loss of farmland while at the same time opportunities for direct marketing are
increasing. Long Term Agriculture zoning exists to protect agriculture from
development, but the results of a recent farmland inventory of the county show
that less than 20 percent of the farmland in Thurston County is zoned Long Term
Agriculture. There is the potential that Thurston County will be establishing an
ongoing purchase of development rights (PDR) program to protect farmland. The
effectiveness of a PDR program hinges on the incorporation of both agricultural
(soils) and non-agricultural (development potential) farmland selection criteria. A
number of multi-criteria analyses were conducted using Geographic Information
Systems software to determine the effectiveness of different combinations of
selection criteria. As the selection criteria for farmland preservation moved away
from agricultural criteria and began to incorporate more non-agricultural criteria
the number of acres zoned Long Term Agriculture in the highest ranked 20,000
acres of the selection decreased. Thus, more farmland at a greater risk of
development was being incorporated; increasing the overall percentage of
farmland protected from development. Farmland in Thurston County has largely
been protected based solely on the presence of high quality soils, leaving a
significant amount of farmland unprotected. A well design PDR program in
Thurston County could close the gap between protected and unprotected
farmland.
-TABLE OF CONTENTS-
Chapter 1
Introduction ---------------------------------------------------- 1
Chapter 2
Agriculture in Thurston County---------------------------- 5
Chapter 3
Farmland Preservation Strategies ------------------------- 9
Zoning ----------------------------------------------------------- 9
Current Use Valuation ---------------------------------------- 12
Urban Growth Boundaries ----------------------------------- 14
Right To Farm ------------------------------------------------- 15
Transfer of Development Rights ---------------------------- 16
Purchase of Development Rights ---------------------------- 17
Summary of Preservation Strategies ------------------------ 19
Chapter 4
Thurston County Agriculture: Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats ------------------ 22
Strengths -------------------------------------------------------- 22
Weaknesses ---------------------------------------------------- 24
Opportunities --------------------------------------------------- 25
Threats ---------------------------------------------------------- 26
Chapter 5
Criteria For Farmland Preservation --------------------- 28
Agricultural Criteria ------------------------------------------- 28
Non-Agricultural Criteria ------------------------------------ 36
PDR Criteria From Around Puget Sound ------------------ 45
Selection Criteria Summary ---------------------------------- 47
Chapter 6
Multi-Criteria Analysis ------------------------------------- 49
Results of Multi-Criteria Analysis -------------------------- 51
Chapter 7
Conclusions ---------------------------------------------------- 53
References
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 57
Appendix
Maps of Multi-Criteria Analyses Results ---------------- 62
-LIST OF FIGURESFigure 1
Acres of land in farms and land used for crops in
Thurston County from 1930 to 2007 ------------------------- 6
Figure 2
Distribution of farmland in Thurston County per the
SSCFLT farmland inventory ---------------------------------- 7
Figure 3
Map of Thurston County soil quality grouped into
contiguous ownerships ---------------------------------------- 30
Figure 4
Example of Contiguous Ownerships ------------------------ 30
Figure 5
Map of contiguous farmland areas in Thurston
County ----------------------------------------------------------- 31
Figure 6
Map of farmland ownerships with a portion or all of
their land enrolled in the current use valuation
program---------------------------------------------------------- 33
Figure 7
Map of ownerships where the Thurston
Conservation District has provided services---------------- 34
Figure 8
Farmland ownerships that have been certified
organic----------------------------------------------------------- 35
Figure 9
Map of farmland zoned Long Term Agriculture in
Thurston County ----------------------------------------------- 37
Figure 10
Development potential of farmland ownerships in
Thurston County ----------------------------------------------- 38
Figure 11
Farmland ownership size in Thurston County-------------- 40
Figure 12
Local Habitat Assessment of Thurston County
farmland --------------------------------------------------------- 42
Figure 13
Thurston County farmland critical aquifer recharge
values ------------------------------------------------------------ 43
Figure 14
Distance of farmland in Thurston County from
urban areas ------------------------------------------------------ 44
Figure 15
Farms in Thurston County that market products
directly to consumers ------------------------------------------ 46
Figure 16
Map of the difference between farmland scores
from Analysis 1 and 10---------------------------------------- 53
-LIST OF TABLESTable 1
Zoning designations of farmland in Thurston
County ----------------------------------------------------------- 38
Table 2
Criterion weights for ten analysis of PDR selection
criteria ----------------------------------------------------------- 51
Table 3
Results of PDR multi-criteria analysis ---------------------- 52
-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI would have never had the opportunity to get involved with a project like this for
my thesis had it not been for the existence of the South of the Sound Community
Farm Land Trust (SSCFLT). To the board of the SSCFLT who work tirelessly
and even sometimes tiredly, your enthusiasm and commitment to the preservation
of farmland in Thurston County is second to none, keep up the good work. Lea
Mitchell was instrumental in my working with SSCFLT and over the last year has
provided guidance and an eye for detail that has helped my own work
tremendously. Also, the infectious energy that surrounds agriculture in Western
Washington that is embodied by the farmers and people who care about the future
of farming has greatly impacted my time here at Evergreen and has helped me to
chart a new path for my future. You all have my utmost thanks and appreciation.
I have also had the honor of Carolyn Dobbs serving as my thesis reader. Carolyn
has been working on issues surrounding land use and specifically farmland in
Thurston County for over thirty years. Carolyn, your advice and encouragement
during the writing process over the last five months has been invaluable, thank
you. Last but not least, to my family and friends who have endured my traveling
and ever changing interests, yet still continue to support me; this thesis is my gift
to you.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The focus of this thesis is on farmland preservation in metropolitan areas
and how a purchase of development rights (PDR) program can be tailored to fit
the unique needs of an individual county. Thurston County, Washington, is
highlighted as a metropolitan county with an active agriculture sector that is
expected to face increasing development pressure over the next twenty to thirty
years.
From the 1940’s through the 1970’s American farmers profited to an
extent never before seen as agricultural production reached new efficiencies of
scale, and as new agricultural lands became available through large scale
irrigation projects. These changes in the agriculture industry negatively affected
Thurston County with its smaller scale producers and limited processing facilities.
At the same time a period of urban expansion caused unprecedented losses of
productive farmland as residential and commercial development began to expand
into the adjacent prime farmlands (Mariola, 2005; Thurston County Agriculture
Committee, 1978). The rate of rural land conversion to urban uses in the U.S.
from 1967 to 1975 was three times the historic average. One result of this
significant loss of farmland and the beginnings of the environmental movement
was an effort to protect farmland from development. By 1980 a nationwide
movement had begun to preserve farmland, and the national non-profit American
Farmland Trust was founded to tackle the issue of farmland preservation
(Mariola, 2005). Over time the farmland preservation movement has grown and
changed. No longer is farmland preservation simply a means with which to
1
protect agricultural production. Today, issues such as resource management,
environmental protection, and farm and community survival have found their way
into the farmland preservation movement (Bunce, 1998).
Thurston County was on the cutting edge of farmland preservation when
in 1978 it established the Agricultural Advisory Committee to assist the Board of
County Commissioners and Planning Commission on agriculture related issues
(Thurston County, 2002). That same year the Agricultural Advisory Committee
issued a report titled “1978 Citizen’s Report: Agriculture in Thurston County.”
One of the conclusions of the Committee’s report was the need for a county level
purchase of development rights program to protect farmland in Thurston County
(Thurston County Agriculture Committee, 1978). More than 30 years later a
number of programs have been created to protect farmland in Thurston County;
however, an ongoing, countywide PDR program is not one of them.
Development rights were purchased on roughly 900 acres of farmland in
northeastern Thurston County near the Nisqually Delta in the early 1990’s, but a
countywide yearly funded program has not materialized. The potential exists for
establishing an on-going PDR program in Thurston County within the next few
years (Thurston County, 2009).
The thesis for this research is that given the metropolitan nature of western
Washington and Thurston County (Klein & Reganold, 1997) the success of a
PDR program in Thurston County depends on selection criteria that include both
agricultural and non-agricultural criteria. A recent study from the state of
Michigan found that as the criteria for preserving farmland shift from agricultural
2
criteria (soils) to non-agricultural criteria (threat from development), the priority
farmland for preservation shifts from rural to metropolitan farmland (Adelaja et
al., 2007). The goal of this research is to answer the question of: What does an
effective PDR program look like in Thurston County? To answer this question a
Geographic Information System (GIS) will be used to analyze the use of two
types of criteria, agricultural and non-agricultural, within a PDR selection criteria.
GIS is a computer application that uses spatial and attribute data for making
decisions. GIS can facilitate data input, storage, analysis, and output of both
spatial and attribute information. (Malczewski, 1999). To complete the GIS
analysis agricultural and non-agricultural criteria will be standardized to a zero to
one scale and given various weighting factors within ten separate analyses to
determine which combination of criteria provides the most effective PDR
selection criteria. The standardization of the criteria is necessary when combining
a number of different criteria with different units of measure into a multi-criteria
analysis (Malczewski, 1999).
There is a growing body of literature on the topics of farmland
preservation and metropolitan agriculture largely spurred by the continuing
growth of urban areas and the significant contribution that farms in metropolitan
areas make to the U.S. agriculture industry. Sources for this thesis come from
both local and national research. Locally, the South of the Sound Community
Farm Land Trust (SSCFLT) has recently completed a farmland inventory of
Thurston County that was very important during the conceptualization of this
thesis. Nationally, the American Farmland Trust and United States Department of
3
Agriculture (USDA) are conducting and funding research on agriculture in
metropolitan areas. A number of researchers from universities across the U.S.
have also made contributions within the last few years that have greatly
influenced this research (Adelaja et al., 2007; Clark et al., 2007; Esseks et al.,
2008; Thompson & Prokopy, 2009).
This research is divided into a number of chapters pertaining to farmland
preservation. Chapter two will follow this introductory chapter and provide an
overview of agriculture in Thurston County over the last several decades using
federal agriculture census information and data from the Thurston Regional
Planning Council. A review of the results of a recently completed Geographic
Information System (GIS) farmland inventory of Thurston County is also
necessary to complete the overview. Chapter three will then discuss the various
regulatory mechanisms, including zoning, current use valuation, urban growth
areas, transfer of development rights (TDR), and PDR that are used to protect
farmland. Chapter four provides an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats to farmland in Thurston County. Finally, in chapters
five and six, using the recently completed farmland inventory of Thurston County
a number of different farmland preservation criteria will be detailed followed by a
number of multi-criteria analyses that will combine different preservation criteria.
The goal of analyzing different preservation criteria is to determine which criteria
and combinations of criteria provide the greatest increase in the level of farmland
protection in Thurston County.
4
Chapter 2: Agriculture in Thurston County
Thurston County is located on the southern end of Puget Sound west of
the Cascades, part of the expansive Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia metropolitan area.
Agriculture in metropolitan counties like King, Pierce, and Thurston Counties is
generally smaller in size than in areas like eastern Washington. Though smaller
in size, the agriculture can also be more intensive; producing greater profits per
acre than in other parts of the state (Klein & Reganold, 1997).
Over the course of the last 70 years the amount of land in farms in
Thurston County has decreased from a high of almost 180,000 acres in 1940 to a
low of 56,799 acres in 1987. From 1987 to the latest federal Census of
Agriculture in 2007 the amount of land in farms has increased to 80,617 acres.
The amount of land used for crops reached a high in 1950 of just over 57,000
acres and also set a low value in 1987 at 22,753 acres. The amount of land used
for crops has since increased to 30,029 acres in 2002, but again decreased in 2007
to 26,283 acres (Figure 1). The acres of woodland in Thurston County could be
contributing to the increase in acres of land in farms; total acres of woodland
increased from 16,333 acres in 1997 to 25,999 acres in the 2007 census, an
increase of almost 10,000 acres. (Census of Agriculture, 1930 – 2007). The
upswing in acres over the last ten years can be attributed to a change in how the
Census of Agriculture was conducted. Beginning in 2002, and retroactively
applied to 1997, the census results are statistically modified to compensate for the
lack of participation by all farmers (Thurston Regional Planning Council [TRPC],
2008).
5
Land in Farms and Crops
200000
180000
160000
140000
Land In Crops
Land In Farms
Acres
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1954
1959
1964
1969
1974
1978
1982
1987
1992
1997
2002
2007
Year
Figure 1. Acres of land in farms and land used for crops in Thurston County from 1930 to 2007.
In 2002 the Thurston Regional Planning Council released a study on the
rate of urbanization and forest harvest in Thurston County from 1985 to 2000.
During that 15 year time span the population of Thurston County increased by
approximately 70,000, and the number of jobs increased by over 48,000. Using
satellite imagery the researchers were able to detect an increase in urbanization of
approximately 32,600 acres. Of this total, 57 percent (18,565 acres) was
previously forested and 30 percent (9,893 acres) was previously farmland (TRPC,
2002). From 2000 to 2008 the population of Thurston County increased by
almost 38,000. The population is projected to increase by an additional 127,493
by 2030 (TRPC, 2008).
Discrepancies between the federal Census of Agriculture and other
measures of the changing agricultural landscape are not uncommon. The problem
with these discrepancies is that Census of Agriculture data influences farmland
preservation policies, so if the census shows farmland is increasing when in fact it
is decreasing, policy makers will be making decisions with misleading
6
information. It is important for state and local governments to begin tracking
farmland to better inform land use decision making (Thompson and Prokopy,
2009).
One of the goals of the recently created Washington State Office of
Farmland Preservation is to create an inventory through the University of
Washington College of Forest Resources of all the farmland in Washington State
to identify farmland at risk of conversion to non-agricultural uses (Office of
Farmland Preservation [OFP], 2009). A Thurston County non-profit, SSCFLT,
has recently completed a farmland inventory of Thurston County. The farmland
inventory will be used in this research to evaluate different PDR selection criteria.
The SSCFLT inventory found 68,247 acres of farmland and aquaculture with
three quarters of the farmland within three miles of an urban area (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Distribution of farmland in Thurston County per the SSCFLT farmland inventory.
7
One of the first steps that need to take place in order to protect farmland is
an inventory of the existing farmland and a system for monitoring it in the future
(Institute for Local Self Government, 2002). Thurston County has been striving
to protect farmland over the last 30 years without having accomplished one of the
necessary first steps. With a complete inventory of all the farmland in the county
planners can take a proactive approach and evaluate all of the farmland parcels at
once (Tulloch et al., 2003). The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in
farmland preservation is growing as it can assist planners in identifying land for
protection (Daniels et al., 1997).
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Chapter 3: Farmland Preservation Strategies
Numerous strategies exist that can be used to protect farmland. Some of
the more common strategies include current use valuation, agricultural zoning,
large lot zoning of greater than 40 acres, agricultural districts, right to farm laws,
TDR, and PDR (Lacy, 2006). A number of goals can be achieved through the use
of these preservation strategies, including the prevention of sprawl, maintenance
of agricultural production, support of the agriculture economy, protection of
environmental services, and the provisioning of rural amenities for example
farmland as rural scenery. Over time numerous strategies can be put in place to
provide a greater level of protection than any one strategy could alone (U.S.
Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2002). Nearly all of the aforementioned
preservation strategies have been enacted in Thurston County.
Zoning
Since 1995 Thurston County has used zoning as required by the
Washington State Growth Management Act of 1990, as amended, to classify
lands under Long Term Agriculture. Currently there is approximately 11,887
acres zoned Long Term Agriculture in Thurston County.
Zoning as a farmland protection strategy has a number of advantages.
Zoning can provide temporary protection from development until more permanent
preservation strategies can be implemented (Halich, 1999). Zoning can also
quickly protect a large amount of farmland thus preventing the conversion of
farms to development and protecting a contiguous critical mass of agricultural
9
lands and production (Duke & Lynch, 2006); this is necessary to protect the
agriculture industry from regional or parcel fragmentation.
Regional fragmentation occurs after farmland has been lost resulting in an
insufficient market for farm support operations and facilities. Parcel
fragmentation can also arise under weak zoning regulations resulting in a
checkerboard or non-contiguous distribution of farmland; this creates difficulties
for farmers trying to achieve an efficient scale of operation (Brabec & Smith,
2002).
A number of negatives also exist for zoning. As it is currently practiced,
constitutional issues exist with zoning that hinder its ability to keep land in
agriculture, and that create problems for planners when trying to implement
(Duke & Lynch, 2006). The act of zoning land Long Term Agriculture is
essentially taking rights away from a private property owner, raising the question
of a regulatory taking. The 5th amendment of the U.S. constitution states that
private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Past
rulings have shown that if a property owner is left without any economically
viable use of their property due to zoning the property owner should be
compensated (Bobrowski, 2002). In Thurston County property owners who have
been under consideration for inclusion within Long Term Agriculture have made
the argument that their land is not productive farmland due to rocky shallow soils.
They assert that the county is removing the only viable economic use of the
property, which is development (Thurston County Planning Commission, 2008a).
10
Another problem with zoning is the possible temporary nature of
designations. In Thurston County the best protection farmland can currently
receive is to be zoned Long Term Agriculture, but the reality is zoning can change
as landscapes and development evolve (Duke & Lynch, 2006; Washington State
Department of Community Trade and Economic Development, 2004; Halich,
1999). One of the greatest difficulties with zoning farmland under Long Term
Agriculture is the restriction of development rights imposed on property owners
without compensation for the loss in land value (Lopez et al., 1988). This can
create a difficult political climate for those who must implement zoning (Duke &
Lynch, 2006; Halich, 1999). The act of down zoning property to Long Term
Agriculture in Thurston County has been met with resistance, by some residents,
from concern for the loss of value without compensation (Thurston County
Planning Commission, 2008a). This puts elected officials in the uncomfortable
position of angering their constituents.
Besides zoning specifically for agriculture, which provides extremely low
density development of 1 house per 40 to 50 acres, many areas outside urban
growth areas are zoned one house per five acres to one house per 10 or 20 acres.
Large lot zoning such as this allows developers to build in a scattered fashion that
consumes more of the landscape than compact development (Daniels, 1999).
Large lot zoning of 3 to 20 acres is not effective for preventing development and
can lead to significant reductions in farmland (USDA, 2001). The rural character
of suburban areas with scattered residences on large parcels can reduce the
number and success of working farms as available land for farming is lost to
11
residential uses on large parcels (American Farmland Trust [AFT], 2006b). The
size of development outside urban areas is increasing as well; in the past new
housing lots were predominantly 1 – 10 acres, but since 1994 55 percent of new
housing has been on lots 10 – 22 acres in size (Mariola, 2005). With zoning
densities of 1 house per 5 – 10 acres in rural areas both farmland preservation and
efficient development lose; the alternative is to zone land at high densities within
urban areas and very low densities in rural areas to promote compact development
and farmland preservation (AFT, 2006b).
The farmland zoned Long Term Agriculture in Thurston County must
meet a number of criteria. The number one criterion for Long Term Agriculture
is soil quality; the soils should be predominantly prime farmland soils. Land
within urban growth areas are not eligible and parcels designated Long Term
Agriculture should be separated from built up areas by a road, railroad, river, or
other feature that provides separation. The size of parcels selected should be
greater than 20 acres and must be verified to be in active agriculture. Finally,
parcels selected should be part of a larger agricultural area no smaller than 320
acres or 200 acres if close to another agricultural area (Thurston County, 2003).
Current Use Valuation
The state of Maryland was the first to use a current use property tax
valuation in 1956 (Lacy, 2006). The Washington State Open Space Tax Act was
created in 1970 to help protect natural resources on private lands. A property
owner with farmland, forestry lands, or natural areas can take part in the open
space program. Property owners receive a tax deferral by having their property
12
assessed at its current use rather than at the potential developed value. Since 1990
the number of acres in the open space agriculture program in Thurston County
reached a high of 40,991 acres in 1992, but has decreased nearly every year since
to a low in 2008 of 34,774 acres. Open space agriculture represents
approximately half of the total farmland recently inventoried by SSCFLT (TRPC
2008). It is unclear whether the downward trend in the current use agriculture
program is due to loss of farmland or active farmers choosing not to participate in
the program.
To put Thurston County’s open space agriculture in perspective the top ten
counties with the greatest amount of open space agriculture in Washington State
all have greater than 500,000 acres enrolled, and the top four counties have over
one million acres each. What Thurston County lacks in acres of farmland, it
makes up for in value of the land. When the true value of the farmland in the
open space tax program is factored, there is a reduction in assessed value of over
$200 million, a 91 percent reduction in value, placing Thurston County sixth in
the state. This means that farmers stand to benefit from taking part in the open
space agriculture program in the form of property tax savings, but at the same
time farmers could also make considerable and perhaps greater gains through
development (OFP, 2008). In metropolitan areas such as Thurston County the
reduction in property taxes is not enough to protect farmland with the greatest
development potential; the financial incentive for farmers to use their property for
non-agricultural uses is fairly high (USDA, 2001). Current use valuation does
13
help farmers by reducing their expenses, but it is not a sufficient strategy to
directly address development pressure (Lacy, 2006).
An example from Thurston County would be two farmers with 20 acres of
land, both of which are within urban growth boundaries. One of the farmers is in
the current use agriculture program and the other is not, and they both have
zoning of rural residential one unit per five acres. Both farmers also have land
and buildings totaling approximately $450,000 in value. The farmer in the current
use agriculture program pays property taxes of $2,600 in 2009. The farmer who
is not in the current use agriculture program has to pay $4,400 in 2009 property
taxes. While the $1,800 in savings the farmer receives by taking part in the
current use agriculture program is significant year to year, it pales in comparison
to the half a million dollars or more the farmer could receive by marketing and
selling the land for development.
Urban Growth Boundaries
The Growth Management Act of 1990 required Thurston County to
establish urban growth boundaries to accommodate future urban expansion. The
farmland inventory conducted by SSCFLT found that 3,124 acres of farmland are
located within the urban growth areas of Thurston County. Generally farmland is
not eligible for protection through a PDR program at the county level if it is
located within an urban growth area or not within a designated agricultural zone.
The goal of establishing urban growth areas is to funnel urban
development into growth areas and limit high density development outside of the
urban growth areas. This begs the question what is the future of farmland within
14
urban growth areas? The Growth Management Act specifically states that, “Each
urban growth area shall permit urban densities and shall include greenbelt and
open space areas”. Thurston County is not precluded from protecting farmland
within the urban growth areas. Farmland and the practice of agriculture could
serve as open space within urban growth areas.
Right to Farm
State and local governments around the U.S. have enacted right to farm
laws designed to do two things for farmers. One, to give farmers legal standing if
a neighbor decides to bring a lawsuit against them for simply practicing
agriculture, and, two, protection from ordinances or unreasonable controls that
would inhibit their ability to farm. A right to farm law does not protect those
farmers who are using poor management practices that unduly impact their
neighbors. The right to farm law also helps non-farm rural residents understand
the expected agricultural activities in rural areas (Farmland Information Center,
1998).
Thurston County has enacted a right to farm ordinance that protects
agricultural practices that existed prior to non-agricultural uses from nuisance
complaints. The agricultural practices must not pose a risk to the public wellbeing which includes groundwater supplies. What a right to farm law does not
do, however, is restrict the ability of an individual or the government to bring a
lawsuit against a farmer (Thurston County Code, 1997).
15
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)
The function of a TDR program is to remove development rights from
land that is to be protected and place the development rights in areas suitable for
development. A TDR program operates by landowners making development
rights available within a defined sending area for developers or jurisdictions to
purchase or hold. The developer can then use the purchased development rights
to increase development density within a defined receiving area designated for
future urban growth. To date, TDR programs for farmland preservation have yet
to make a lot of progress in the United States, protecting far fewer acres than PDR
programs (Lacy, 2006).
In 1995 Thurston County adopted a TDR ordinance for farmland
preservation. Land zoned Long Term Agriculture serves as the sending area with
land owners able to transfer one development right per five acres. Two residential
zones serve as the receiving areas where the developer can increase the density
from five to six units per acre in one area and from 15 to 16 units per acre in the
other sending area (Pruetz, 1999).
To date, 35 development rights have been issued by property owners and
14 development rights have been purchased by developers; resulting in 70 acres
protected by the TDR program (Thurston County Planning Commission, 2008b).
The two major problems with the Thurston County TDR program are lack of a
strong incentive for farmers to sell development rights and little to no demand for
higher density development in the receiving areas (Bledsoe et al., 1998). Property
owners in the sending areas of Thurston County have voiced their dissatisfaction
16
with the TDR program because it has failed to return the value to their lands that
were lost when zoned to Long Term Agriculture (Thurston County Planning
Commission, 2008a). For example a property owner whose land is zoned Long
Term Agriculture; has incurred a reduction in the market value of their land
through the lowering of the allowable development density. Currently the only
way a property owner can recoup some of their lost property value is if their
development rights are transferred to an urban developer which would result in a
payment to the rural property owner.
King County began using a TDR program in the year 2000 to protect open
space and has since protected 137,500 acres through development right transfers.
However, less than 100 acres of development rights have been transferred from
farmland, the majority is forest lands (M. Murphy, personal communication, April
15, 2009). The most successful farmland TDR program in the nation,
Montgomery County, Maryland, has protected 51,489 acres (Farmland
Information Center [FIC], 2008). Montgomery County provides an example of the
type of farmland preservation success that is possible under a TDR program
(Lacy, 2006).
Purchase of Development Rights (PDR)
A PDR program provides a mechanism for government or a non-profit
entity to purchase development rights from an individual property owner. The
property owner retains ownership over the land, but loses all rights to any future
non-farm use. The funding for PDR programs, operated by a state or county,
comes from public funds. Property or sales tax would be two examples, but
17
funding strategies can also be more complex and creative. The amount paid to a
property owner for the development right is determined by subtracting the value
of the land if sold for development from the value of the land if sold for
agricultural purposes. As opposed to TDR programs, PDR programs do not
generally have specific sending areas to purchase rights but usually are applied
within an entire county or state (Lacy, 2006). Over the course of the last 40 years
57 local PDR programs have been established in 18 states with the purpose
protecting farmland. These programs have spent upwards of $1 billion dollars to
acquire the development rights to farmland (FIC, 2008). The implementation of a
PDR program should be geared towards the needs and circumstances of the local
community. A PDR program should also reflect the goals of elected officials,
planners, and community members (AFT, 2006a).
Five counties in Washington, including King, San Juan, Skagit, Thurston
(program not currently active), and Whatcom have purchased farmland
development rights. King County has protected the most acres in Washington
State with 13,265 acres, followed by Skagit County with 6,078 acres, San Juan
County with 1,156 acres, Thurston County with 942 acres, and Whatcom County
with 571 acres (FIC, 2008).
The advantages of a PDR program as a farmland preservation strategy can
be summed up in three words: efficient, equitable, and permanent (Brabec &
Smith, 2002). PDR programs are efficient because funds are targeted for the
highest quality farms under the greatest threat of development. Farms are chosen
based on predetermined selection criteria that can include a broad array of criteria
18
depending on the goals of the PDR program (USDA, 2001; Duke & Lynch,
2006). The equitable nature of PDR programs comes from the voluntary nature of
participation by the farmer. This avoids issues with devaluing property as seen in
zoning, thus avoiding any uncompensated infringement on property rights
(USDA, 2001; Halich, 1999). A study conducted in 2008 of 15 metropolitan
counties found that farmers favor PDR programs over zoning 64 percent to 37
percent (Esseks et al., 2008). PDR programs also keep farmland affordable. By
removing the development value of a property it can be sold and purchased for
just the agricultural value (Halich, 1999). With the exception of TDR programs,
PDR programs are unique in their ability to protect farmland permanently
(USDA, 2001).
The one consistently cited disadvantage of PDR programs is the cost
(Brabec & Smith, 2002; Halich, 1999; USDA, 2001). The average cost per acre
of farmland preserved in 2003 was approximately $2,000 (Adelaja et al., 2007).
If Thurston County had a goal of preserving 20,000 acres using PDR it would cost
approximately $40 million.
Another disadvantage to PDR is the voluntary nature of the program
which means targeted farms may not take part. On the flip side there may be too
great a demand to participate in the PDR program that outpaces the supply of
funds for purchase (Halich, 1999).
Summary of Preservation Strategies
It is important to keep in mind the existing protection status of farmland
and the implied allocation of property rights when planning for future farmland
19
preservation, particularly for the implementation of a new PDR program. If the
implementation of the new program is not done correctly, stakeholder
dissatisfaction could ensue thus endangering the success of the program. All
preservation policies should be coordinated to eliminate inefficiencies in farmland
preservation (Duke & Lynch, 2006). Because all of the farmland in Thurston
County is not zoned Long Term Agriculture it could be difficult to implement a
PDR program and purchase land not currently in Long Term Agriculture. It
would be creating a situation where development rights were taken from some
property owners and purchased from others. The maintenance of Thurston
Counties TDR program could mitigate the situation and provide farmers in Long
Term Agriculture with two avenues for recouping some of their lost property
value.
No single preservation strategy can satisfy all the goals of farmland
preservation; for farmland preservation to be fully realized the right combination
of preservation tools and both governmental and non-governmental participation
must be combined (Lacy, 2006). A good example of using multiple preservation
tools comes from Montgomery and Calvert Counties in Maryland. Montgomery
County has been extremely successful with farmland preservation through the use
of TDR, having protected approximately 50,000 acres, which represents over half
of all the acres protected nationally. Even with the substantial farmland
protection that had been accomplished, Montgomery County realized the TDR
program was not meeting all of their goals. The county has since added a PDR
program to focus on parcels bordering urban areas. Calvert County created a
20
PDR program much like Montgomery County after also realizing its TDR
program was not meeting all of its goals; Calvert County’s PDR program is also
geared towards farmland near urban areas (Lynch & Musser, 2001).
21
Chapter 4: Thurston County Agriculture:
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
This chapter is devoted to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats to agriculture in Thurston County. Generally, the attributes discussed
pertain to agriculture within a metropolitan area. That being said, some of the
information presented represents national or regional trends that pertain to
metropolitan agriculture as a whole; individual farms may not always conform to
these trends. (Clark et al., 2007). Every effort will be made to include attributes
and trends specific to Western Washington and Thurston County as they are
available.
Strengths
One of the strengths of farmland protection is the low cost to tax payers
when compared with low density development (USDA, 2001). A cost of
community services (COCS) study provides a means of comparing costs and
revenues based on current land use patterns. A review of more than 60 COCS
studies showed that property taxes are insufficient to pay for the costs of
residential development. Keeping farm and forest land productive results in low
demands for services and lower costs to tax payers; at the same time farming and
forestry provide economic and environmental benefits (AFT, 1999).
A COCS study conducted in nearby Skagit County revealed that
residential development produced $131.5 million in revenues but at the same time
required over $160 million in expenditures, with a net loss to Skagit County of
$31.2 million. Farms, forests, and open space on the other hand required $9.6
million but produced $19 million in revenues, a net gain of $9.3 million. For
22
every dollar of revenue the county receives from residential development, it costs
the county $1.25. For every dollar of agricultural revenue it costs the county only
$0.51. The low cost of services to farmland makes it in the public’s interest to
protect farmland rather than convert it to low density development (AFT, 1999).
Farmland in metropolitan or even metro-adjacent counties is an important
component of both the state and national farm economy. Nationally in 2002
metropolitan and metropolitan adjacent counties possessed only 38 percent of the
U.S. farmland, but generated 55 percent of the total farm sales. (Jackson-Smith et
al., 2008). Data from 1992 indicate farmland in the metropolitan counties of
western Washington have an even bigger impact than metropolitan counties
nationally. In 1992 Western Washington accounted for only 5 percent of the
state’s farmland but generated 23 percent of the states total agricultural earnings
(Klein & Reganold, 2002).
Generally it has been understood that farmer participation in new urban
oriented markets has remained relatively low. Urban oriented markets include
marketing products as local, natural, organic, family raised, selling direct to
consumers, selling direct to institutions, or value added processing. However, a
recent case study of eight metropolitan counties found that a majority of farmers
use at least one urban oriented marketing strategy (Clark et al., 2007). This
finding fits well with western Washington which has a longstanding tradition of
urban oriented marketing strategies such as farmers markets, farmland
preservation groups, community supported agriculture, and food cooperatives
(Selfa, Jussaume, & Winter, 2008).
23
There are a number of locational strengths that will benefit farmers in
Thurston County but may not benefit farmers in more rural counties. These
include a larger consumer base, a more efficient transportation system, shorter
distance to markets including three farmers markets in Thurston County, direct
marketing opportunities, the availability of off-farm employment (Klein &
Reganold, 1997), and a larger number of seasonal or part-time workers (USDA,
2001). Another strength of the proximity to consumers is vegetable production
(Lopez, Adelaja, & Andrews, 1998); in Thurston County during almost the last 40
years the number of farms producing vegetables have increased from eight in
1969 to a high of 64 in 2007. Though at the same time the number of acres
devoted to vegetables has decreased from 939 acres to 390 acres over the same
time span (Census of Agriculture, 1930 – 2007). This maybe a sign of farmers
switching to higher value products in the face of rising land prices and urban
oriented marketing (USDA, 2001).
Weaknesses
As low density development occurs outside urban areas, it is common for
hobby or lifestyle farms to develop. These can be characterized as small in size
with little to no profits (Jackson-Smith, 2008). As economic enterprises hobby
farms are not generally viable, and when they are no longer fun or rewarding for
the property owner, development may soon follow (USDA, 2001).
As the urban population of a metropolitan county works to protect
farmland through various regulatory mechanisms, a knowledge gap may exist
between those entities offering assistance and the farmers receiving the assistance.
24
Farmers also generally feel that most farmland preservation policies will have
negative impacts on their way of life (Jackson-Smith, 2008).
In Thurston County one of the big agricultural weaknesses is that
thousands of acres of farmland are not currently within the zoning designation of
Long Term Agriculture or participating in the current use valuation program.
Both of these indicate that there is a significant amount of farmland at risk of
conversion to other uses (SSCFLT, 2009).
Opportunities
The opportunities section for agriculture in Thurston County is focused
towards farmland preservation. Overall, land preservation which includes
farmland preservation receives extensive public support, although individuals
have different opinions about why land should be preserved (Kline & Wichelns,
1998).
In Washington State those farmers using sustainable agricultural practices
are more likely to support policies to protect local family farms and government
restrictions on non-agricultural development (Selfa, Jussaume, & Winter, 2008).
A recent Washington State study found that both farmers and consumers want to
protect agricultural land; this finding transcended demographic, production, and
purchasing differences for both farmers and consumers (Selfa, Jussaume, &
Winter, 2008). The combination of citizen support and the current down turn in
new home construction makes the climate for farmland preservation in Thurston
County quite favorable (USDA, 2001).
25
Threats
The major threat to agriculture in a metropolitan area such as Thurston
County is conversion to low density development. Farming in a metropolitan area
places farmers under development pressure from individuals and families
migrating from both cities and rural areas (USDA, 2001). As farmers compete
with middle-class residents for land, prices increase. Conflicts with non-farm
neighbors become more common, and farmers may be subject to increased
regulation and enforcement of agricultural practices (Clark et al., 2007).
While farmers may begin to benefit from an increase in direct sales to
metropolitan citizens, they will also be subjected to increasing labor and time
demands. Farmers will also have to compete with large scale non-local organics,
particularly those from California that may force them to lower their prices, thus
reducing profits (Jarosz, 2008). Generally, livestock is the farm commodity most
negatively affected by suburbanization (Lopez, Adelaja, & Andrews, 1988), and
while vegetable production expands under suburbanization, it is also usually the
last agricultural commodity to be farmed before land is converted to non-farm
uses (USDA, 2001).
Thurston County is on the low end of urbanization pressure as compared
to Southern California or the Northeast U.S., but farm policies implemented
sooner rather than later will be more effective as urbanization can reach such a
level that farm policies begin to be less effective (Larson, Findeis, & Smith,
2001). For example, areas of contiguous farmland in Thurston County could
become permanently fragmented by development if not protected. Projected
26
levels of population growth in Thurston County over the next 20 years will affect
the success of farmland preservation efforts.
27
Chapter 5: Criteria for Farmland Preservation
Numerous criteria exist for selecting farmland for preservation. Each
criterion should reflect a specific desired trait about farmland that is to be
protected. Over the last 30 years the criteria used to select farmland has tended to
favor agricultural criteria; soil quality has been a primary measure. Evidence
from the Northeastern U.S. and Great Lakes regions suggest that the public wants
more from their PDR programs than the protection of soil quality. There is a
desire to protect locally grown food, the farming culture, and water quality among
other non-agricultural criteria (Duke & Aull-Hyde, 2002; Adelaja et al., 2007).
The potential exists that by incorporating more non-agricultural criteria and
shifting away from agricultural criteria a PDR program could select farms for
preservation that would have been overlooked in a more traditional program
(Kline & Wichelns, 1996).
Agricultural Criteria
Soil Quality
The most common criterion for selecting farmland for preservation is soil
quality; built into soil quality is the slope of the land, drainage, and productivity
or how farmable the soil is (AFT, 2006a). High quality soils are a finite resource,
and as they are lost to non-farm uses, marginal land is more likely to be brought
into production. This would mean farming on less productive, poorly drained,
and/or steep sloped soils (Lacy, 2006). Soil quality is also a common selection
criterion because the information is freely available and based on science, which
yields a relatively objective means of classifying farmland (USDA, 2002).
28
At the same time, soil quality may not deserve such a high status in
ranking criteria. With advances in farm technologies and the variety of types of
agriculture that can function on moderate soils it begs the question, are soils the
most important criteria? By making soil quality the highest priority successful
farmers on moderate quality soils are being overlooked (AFT, 2006a).
One of the components of the SSCFLT farmland inventory was the
grouping of soils in Thurston County into three classes, Tiers One, Two, and
Three. Tier One soils comprise all prime soils with a land capability classification
of one to three. Tier Two soils are all soils that are prime if irrigated, drained, or
protected from flooding with a land capability classification of three to five. Tier
Three soils are poor quality soils for agriculture with land capability
classifications greater than five; these soils are generally steep, rocky, and/or very
poorly drained.
The classes defined within the SSCFLT inventory can be standardized to
the zero to one scale (Malczewski, 1999). To standardize the soil quality for each
contiguous ownership the acreage of the Tier One soils were multiplied by 1.00,
the acreage of the Tier Two soils were multiplied by 0.50, and the acreage of the
Tier Three soils were multiplied by 0.00. The products for each soil type within a
contiguous ownership were then added together and divided by the total
contiguous ownership acreage. A contiguous ownership with a value of 1 would
be 100 percent Tier One soil, and vice versa for a contiguous ownership with a
value of 0.00 that would be 100 percent Tier Three soil. The majority of the
29
highest ranked farmland for soil quality occurs in southwestern Thurston County
(Figure 3).
Figure 3. Map of Thurston County soil quality grouped into contiguous ownerships.
An example of contiguous ownerships is provided in Figure 4.
Figure 4. In the example of contiguous ownerships shown above farmer #1 would have three separate
contiguous ownerships that would be evaluated separately from each other. Farmer #2 has one
contiguous ownership and all parcels will be evaluated as one ownership.
30
Agricultural Areas
After soil quality the next most common criterion is farmland preservation
contiguity (Figure 5); prioritizing farmland for preservation that is adjacent or
Figure 5. Map of contiguous farmland areas in Thurston County.
close to previously preserved farmland or natural areas. This is commonly
referred to as protecting a critical mass of farmland that is better insulated from
the effects of non-farm development (AFT, 2006a). A recent study that looked at
15 metropolitan counties in the U.S. found a majority of the parcels protected
through PDR programs had a neighboring preserved farm (Esseks et al., 2008). In
addition to protecting farmland adjacent to already protected farmland is the
desire to protect contiguous farmland areas (AFT, 2006a).
Contiguous farmland in Thurston County was identified by buffering the
parcels within the farmland inventory by a distance of 75 feet to eliminate gaps
between parcels due to roads (Tulloch et al., 2003). Close to 400 separate
31
agricultural areas were created using the buffer feature ranging in size from 9,393
acres to just over 2 acres. There are 11 contiguous farmland areas in Thurston
County greater than 1,000 acres in size.
Given the skewed distribution of the size of agricultural areas with only a
handful of the total areas being greater than 1,000 acres a straight linear
transformation to the zero to one scale would be inappropriate. For that reason a
value curve was used to standardize the agricultural areas. Using the midvalue
method first, the maximum and minimum agricultural areas were assigned the
values of 1.0 and 0.0. The midvalue point between the maximum and minimum
received a value of 0.5. Then the midvalue was established between 1.0 and 0.5
(0.75), and 0.0 and 0.5 (0.25). The setting of midvalues continued until the data
had been divided into sixteenths. Using Microsoft Excel a logarithmic curve was
determined from a scatter plot of the values with the values zero to one on the yaxis and the acreage of the agricultural areas on the x-axis. This equation was
applied to all of the agricultural areas, but the resulting data did not perfectly fit
the zero to one scale as was hoped. Therefore, a linear transformation was used
by dividing all the derived values by the maximum value of 1.23 to shift the data
to a zero to one scale (Malczewski, 1999).
Quality of Agricultural Operation
Another useful criterion to include in farmland preservation is the quality
of the agricultural operation itself. Does the farm possess a soil or water
conservation plan? How long has the farm been in the family, and will it be so in
the future? What is the diversity of products produced by the farm? What
32
investments have been made in capital improvements? What is the condition of
the farm? Last, what amount of the family income comes from the farm? The
answers to these questions, while more qualitative in nature than other criteria, are
important to define continuing viability of the agricultural operation (AFT,
2006a).
Three criteria can be used to help determine the quality of the agricultural
operation. The first criterion is to identify those farms enrolled in the current use
valuation program for agriculture (Figure 6). To be admitted to the
Figure 6. Map of farmland ownerships with a portion or all of their land enrolled in the current use
valuation program.
Thurston County current use program an applicant must show proof of farming
activity and proof of farm income for three of the previous five years. Using this
criterion helps to highlight those farms actively involved in agriculture, and it
encourages those farmers who wish to take part in the PDR program to join the
current use agriculture program. The only drawback is that farmers intent on
33
selling their land are potentially less likely to be enrolled in the current use
program.
A second agricultural quality criterion comes from the farmland inventory
conducted by SSCFLT that collected information on farms with which the
Thurston Conservation District has worked. While the data do not indicate the
exact services provided to the landowner the conservation district primarily
provides assistance with land and water conservation measures to reduce the
impact of agricultural operations. Identifying those farmers who have worked
with the Conservation District provides a source to identify the quality of
agricultural operations (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Map of ownerships where the Thurston Conservation District has provided services.
The final criterion for defining the quality of an agricultural operation is
organic certification (Figure 8). Only a handful of farms in Thurston County have
34
Figure 8. Farmland ownerships that have been certified organic.
been certified organic, but their certification indicates a commitment to long-term
farming and environmentally friendly farming practices. Nationally, sales of
certified organic products have increased 20 – 25 percent every year since 1990,
but at the same time farmers incur significant costs in converting to organic
agriculture (Lotter, 2003). By placing an organic certification criterion in the
PDR selection criteria, Thurston County would be rewarding those farmers who
have committed to organic agriculture.
Each of the agricultural operation quality criteria defined above represent
deterministic variables. All three of the criteria are binary yes or no variables;
each contiguous ownership receives a one or zero (Malczewski, 1999). Not a lot
of middle ground exists for any of the three criteria; for example, a farmer has
enrolled in the current use valuation program or he/she has not.
35
Agricultural Zoning
PDR programs can also prioritize farms for preservation that are within a
defined agricultural district or zoning. There are two reasons for a county to do
this. The first is to capitalize upon local government, such as a municipality, that
has zoned land for agriculture. It is common in some states for municipalities to
create the zoning as opposed to counties, but counties are usually better equipped
to operate a PDR program. The second reason is to focus the PDR program on
defined existing agricultural areas (AFT, 2006a). Neither of these reasons really
applies to protecting farmland in Thurston County. First, the municipalities
within Thurston County do not zone land for agriculture; the county is in charge
of zoning land for agriculture within the unincorporated portions of the county.
This concept applies more to areas with a strong home rule system of government
where local municipalities have the power to zone land as opposed to the
counties; Pennsylvania is an example of a state where this would apply. Within
counties in Pennsylvania there is no unincorporated land, everything is within a
municipality. The other reason why focusing on already defined agricultural
areas does not work for Thurston County is that Long Term Agriculture zoning
protects less than a fifth of the recently inventoried farmland in the county (Figure
9) (SSCFLT, 2009).
36
Figure 9. Map of farmland zoned Long Term Agriculture in Thurston County.
Non-Agricultural Criteria
Development Potential
PDR programs that use development potential, or threat, as a selection
criterion rank farmland based on how developable the land is. By using
development potential as a criterion, farmland under the greatest threat from
development can be targeted for preservation ahead of less developable parcels
(AFT, 2006a). In Thurston County the easiest way to determine the development
potential of farmland is to look at its zoning (Figure 10). The zoning of farmland
37
Figure 10. Development potential of farmland ownerships in Thurston County.
in Thurston County falls into 44 different zoning designations, ranging from Long
Term Agriculture and rural 1/20 to urban reserve 1/5 and residential zones with
high housing densities (Table 1.)
Lake
Low Density Residential
Long Term Forestry
Planned Industrial Park
Nisqually Agriculture
Professional Office/Residential
Master Planned Community
Moderate Density
Residential
Central Business District
Long Term Agriculture
Rural Commercial
Heavy Commercial
Rural 1/20
Residential LAMIRD 2/1
Light Industrial
Rural 1/10
Medium Density Residential 4/1
Commercial
Agriculture
Single Family Residential 4/1
Highway Commercial
Open Space
Low Density Residential 0-4
Residential Sensitive
Resource 2-4
Large Lot Commercial
Urban Reserve 1/5
Rural Resource Industrial
McAllister Geologically
Sensitive Area
Low Density Residential 3-6
Mixed Residential 7-13
Rural Residential 1/5
Residential
Multifamily Medium Density
Residential 9-15
Rural Residential Resource 1/5
Single Family Low Density
Residential 4-7
Arterial Commercial
Residential LAMIRD ½
Residential 4-8
Mixed Residential
10-18
Open Space Institutional
Residential LAMIRD 1/1
Single Family Medium Density
Residential 6-9
Medium Density Residential 6-9
Residential Multifamily 18
Table 1. Zoning designations of farmland in Thurston County.
38
Zoning for all parcels within the farmland inventory were identified, and
the 44 different zoning designations were assigned values by dividing the number
of units allowed per acre. For example zoning of urban reserve one unit per five
acres received a value of 5. For zoning designations with a range of allowable
development densities, the maximum value was used to derive the value. The
midvalue method used for soil quality was again used to derive a logarithmic
value curve to standardize all of the zoning designations to a zero to one scale
(Malczewski, 1999). The value curve generated values from -0.16 to 0.79.
Because of the poor fit to the zero to one scale all scores were increased by
placing the high score of 0.79 at 1 and increasing all other scores accordingly.
Multi-parcel ownerships are commonly made up of differently zoned
parcels. To aggregate the development potential for the entire contiguous
ownership the acreage of each parcel was multiplied by the development potential
value, summed for each contiguous ownership, and divided by the total acreage of
the contiguous ownership as shown in Figure 10.
Ownership Size
Another common non-agricultural PDR criterion is the size of the parcel.
Most programs focus on parcels over a certain size to maximize farmland
preservation (AFT, 2006a). Since most farmers own multiple parcels making up
larger ownerships, the level of analysis for this research is not the parcel, but
rather the size of contiguous parcels under the same ownership.
Contiguous ownerships range from just over an acre to over 1,000 acres
with an average size of approximately 42 acres. Only 16 of the almost 1,600
39
ownerships identified were larger than 500 acres. For that reason ownership size
was standardized to the scale of 0 to 1 using the midvalue method defined in soil
quality (Figure 11) (Malczewski, 1999). As was the case with the other criteria
standardized using the midvalue method, the resulting logarithmic equation and
values for ownership size did not conform to the zero to one scale. Like soil
quality a linear transformation of the resulting values was used by dividing all
values by the maximum value of 1.277.
Figure 11. Farmland ownership size in Thurston County.
Cost
The acquisition of development rights is expensive, so it is no surprise that
it plays a role in most PDR selection criteria. In some PDR programs the
selection of farmland for preservation is based solely on the cost of the
development rights. The price of each acquisition can determine its rank, but it is
also important to ascertain if the owner is donating any of the value or if matching
funds are being provided by another entity (AFT, 2006a). There are significant
40
tax advantages for property owners to donate some or all of the easement value,
not only for federal income taxes but also for their heirs when dealing with estate
taxes (Small, 2000).
The cost of development rights for a particular property is usually defined
through an appraisal after the farmland has already been targeted for preservation.
Therefore, it is difficult to gauge the cost of the development rights for each
individually owned piece of farmland in Thurston County. This criterion will not
be included in the multi-criteria analysis.
Natural Resource Value
When a county decides to preserve farmland through PDR, an opportunity
exists to protect not just the farmland but the associated habitat, wetlands,
watersheds, and scenic views that each prospective piece of farmland might
possess (AFT, 2006a). The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
provided the SSCFLT with a Local Habitat Assessment (LHA) for Thurston
County. The LHA is a GIS raster or surface model that combines an ecoregional
assessment, road density, and land conversion data to determine the value of
wildlife habitat on a range of 0 to 10 for the entire county. The LHA values for
the farmland in the SSCFLT inventory range from two to almost nine. To
standardize the LHA values to the zero to one scale a linear transformation was
used by dividing each contiguous ownership by the maximum LHA value for
farmland (Figure 12) (Malczewski, 1999).
41
Figure 12. LHA of Thurston County farmland.
Critical Aquifer Recharge Areas
Critical aquifer recharge areas (CARA) are one of the critical areas
identified in the Washington State Growth Management Act of 1990 that
Thurston County is required to protect. Farmland that is located within the
highest rated aquifer recharge areas must comply with best management practices
for agriculture (Thurston County Planning Commission, 2006). Purchasing
development rights on farmland within the most critical aquifer recharge areas
could help protect groundwater resources given the existence of best management
practices (Figure 13).
42
Figure 13. Thurston County farmland critical aquifer recharge values.
Standardizing the aquifer recharge for each contiguous ownership to the
zero to one scale involved first calculating the acreage of four possible levels of
aquifer recharge for each ownership. The levels of aquifer recharge are low,
moderate, high, and extreme. The acreage of the extreme areas was multiplied by
1, the acreage of high areas was multiplied by 0.75, the acreage of moderate areas
was multiplied by 0.5, and the acreage of low areas was multiplied by 0.25. The
products for the existing levels of aquifer recharge within each contiguous
ownership were then added together and divided by the total contiguous
ownership acreage. This standardization is the same used to define soil quality
(Malczewski, 1999).
Proximity to Urban Areas
This criterion is a measure of an ownership’s proximity to existing or
planned urban areas or the proximity to public water or sewer. If used in the
selection criteria of a PDR program, it either drives the selection of farmland
43
towards or away from development. Some PDR programs view proximity to
development as a negative, while other programs view it as a positive. Generally,
farmland farther from development will be more affordable while farmland closer
to development will be more expensive. The argument for protecting land
adjacent to urban areas is that it provides a buffer against development (AFT,
2006a). While this type of preservation may help control urban expansion, it is
not likely to contribute significantly to the total number of acres preserved (Lynch
& Lovell, 2003). However, this may not be true for Thurston County since by not
protecting farmland near urban areas a significant number of acres may actually
be lost to non-agricultural uses (Figure 14).
Figure 14. Distance of farmland in Thurston County from urban areas.
The distribution of farmland distances from urban areas is from
approximately 0 to 10 miles. Therefore a linear transformation was used to
standardize the distances from urban areas to the zero to one scale (Malczewski,
1999). This was accomplished by dividing the distance of each contiguous
44
ownership by the maximum distance. In this analysis farmland in close proximity
to urban areas is looked at as a positive, so all of the resulting scores were
inverted on the zero to one scale.
In Figure 14 nearly all of the farmland within one mile of the urban areas
has a value of 0.91 – 1.00 and is colored dark green. A total of approximately
26,280 acres or about 40 percent of the inventoried farmland in Thurston County
is within one mile of the urban areas.
Direct Marketing / Value Added Processing
If you were to ask someone to name a farm in Thurston County chances
are they would name a farm that is directly marketing their products to
consumers. This would be in the form of a farm stand on their property, a stand at
one of the local farmers markets, a u-pick operation where consumers pick their
own fruits or vegetables, or through a farm share in a community supported
agriculture (CSA) program. These iconic farms of local production are
potentially creating a strong local connection to agriculture that might not
otherwise be present in the largely urban citizenry of Thurston County. By
selecting for farms that market directly to consumers (Figure 15) we can reward
those farmers who are actively working to make local agriculture a reality.
45
Figure 15. Farms in Thurston County that market products directly to consumers.
PDR Criteria From Around Puget Sound
Four counties in Washington have active PDR programs. King County
formed one of the earliest PDR programs in the U.S. in 1979. 95 percent of the
13,000 acres of development rights acquired by King County were completed by
1985. Development rights have been acquired only sporadically since then. A
quantitative process for selecting farms for the PDR program does not exist.
Instead, the county gives priority to development rights for farmland that can be
acquired below the appraised value. These lands must also be in active
agriculture, under threat from development, and within contiguous agricultural
areas (AFT, 2003).
The Skagit County PDR program has only been around since 1997, but
has protected 2,500 acres through 39 transactions. A ranking system is used to
award points based on the quality of the farmland, development threat, aesthetic
and environmental values. Skagit County does not use an appraisal process to
46
determine development right values, but instead uses a separate ranking system
based on comparable farmland values to establish prices. To be eligible for
development rights acquisition, farmland must be located within either
agricultural or natural resource zoning, which both have development densities of
one unit per 40 acres (AFT, 2003).
The goals of the Whatcom County PDR program created in 2001 are to
provide a buffer from development for agricultural areas and protect large areas of
farmland. There are twelve target areas zoned either agriculture or rural where
development rights for farmland preservation can be acquired. Whatcom County
uses detailed PDR criteria with up to 120 possible points. Some highlights of the
ranking criteria include preference given to bargain sales, farmland under threat of
conversion, and farmland adjacent to urban areas and/or fronting a high traffic
road (Whatcom County, 2006).
Though it may be the smallest county in Washington, San Juan County
still created a PDR program in 1990, protecting over 1,000 acres of farmland
since then. The county does not have an exact method for selecting farms for
preservation. Each year the staff selects farmland for potential preservation and
citizens can also apply; then public hearings are held to allow citizens to comment
on specific acquisitions. The five criteria the county considers when selecting
farmland for preservation are: quality of the farmland, level of threat from nonagricultural uses, current level of protection, effective use of public funds, and
public opinion. The public actually gets to weigh in during public meetings on
their preferences for the protection of specific farmland properties (AFT, 2003).
47
Selection Criteria Summary
A range of options exist for potential criterion to make up PDR selection
criteria. Some of the criteria are shared by nearly all PDR selection criteria, and
other criteria are used less frequently. Using PDR selection criteria that are the
same as another county or state just because it worked for them may not be wise
(USDA, 2002). What has worked in King County worked because of the unique
features of King County; the same can be said of Skagit, Whatcom, and San Juan.
Thurston County will have to create its own unique selection criteria.
What can be gleaned from the PDR examples of other counties is the
incorporation of both agricultural and non-agricultural criteria. Threat from
development, adjacency to urban areas, and environmental values are present in
some or all of the active PDR programs in Western Washington. Other nonagricultural criteria such as cost and public input cannot be evaluated within this
thesis but should be part of the selection criteria if Thurston County decides to
create a PDR program.
By incorporating both agricultural and non-agricultural criteria the
resulting PDR program can better respond to both farmer and non-farmer goals.
While the protection of high quality soils is important, the fact that we live in a
growing metropolitan area where a majority of the agricultural land is not zoned
for agriculture demands the inclusion of criteria that reflect the threat from nonfarm uses at the ownership level. We know the population of Thurston County is
going to increase over the next twenty years, but where are these new residents
going to go and is there farmland at risk of conversion in these areas? By
48
including agricultural and non-agricultural criteria such as quality of agricultural
operation, development potential, and distance from urban areas, quality farmland
under threat from future development will have the potential to gain the protection
it needs. It makes little sense to protect farmland through a PDR program that is
not under imminent threat from future development.
49
Chapter 6: Multi-Criteria Analysis
A good measure of success of a farmland preservation program is how
effectively it protects the existing farmland in the county (AFT, 2006c). By using
the latest federal Census of Agriculture or an existing farmland inventory, as will
be the case in this research, a measure of the percentage of farmland preserved
can be calculated.
About 15 percent of the inventoried farmland in Thurston County is
protected by the zoning of Long Term Agriculture. The goal of selecting and
weighting multiple criteria is to increase the percentage of farmland protected.
For the sake of this analysis we will assume that a PDR program in Thurston
County will only protect 20,000 acres. This amount was chosen because it
represents more acres than have been protected by any other county in the state of
Washington, and it would place Thurston County among some of the most
successful PDR programs in the nation in terms of acres protected. At a value of
$2,000 per acre the total cost of purchasing 20,000 acres worth of development
rights comes to $40 million. The highest ranked 20,000 acres of each multicriteria analysis will be used to determine which combination of criteria provides
the greatest increase to the percentage of inventoried farmland that is preserved
beyond that protected by Long Term Agriculture zoning.
A simple additive weighting (SAW) method will be used to conduct the
multi-criteria analysis. The SAW method is frequently used in spatial multicriteria problems (Malczewski, 1999). A decision maker, in this case Thurston
County, assigns weights to each criterion, multiplies the standardized criterion
50
value by its weight value, and sums the products of the criterion. Because each of
the criteria has already been standardized, the next step is to define a number of
analyses with different weights.
There will be ten analyses with different weights assigned to selection
criterion (Table 2). The analyses range from number one with strictly agricultural
Table 2. Criterion weights for ten analysis of PDR selection criteria. Including both agricultural and
non-agricultural criterion. An “X” indicates a limiting factor, in this case, only those ownerships with
some or all of their farmland in the current use agriculture program are eligible.
criteria, to number ten with a mix of agricultural and non-agricultural criteria.
The ten analyses were designed to gradually decrease the influence of agricultural
criteria, particularly soil quality. At the same time while the influence of
agricultural criteria is decreasing various combinations of non-agricultural criteria
are being incorporated. The amount of farmland zoned Long Term Agriculture
will be calculated for each analysis to determine the effect of decreasing the
influence of agricultural criteria on the PDR outcome.
51
Results of Multi-Criteria Analysis
As the Analysis progressed from 1 to 10 the number of acres of Long
Term Agriculture gradually decreased (Table 3). The lowest acreages of
Table 3. Results of PDR multi-criteria analysis.
Long Term Agriculture within the highest ranked 20,000 acres occurred in
Analysis 9 and 10. Analysis 9 included soil quality within the selection criteria
but the weight applied was 0.10. Analysis 10 did not include soil quality in the
selection criteria. Both Analyses 9 and 10 had more then 50 percent of the
available weight dedicated to non-agricultural criteria. Maps of the results of all
ten analyses are available in the Appendix.
The spatial change in farmland selected for preservation is best viewed by
looking at the difference between Analysis 1 and 10 (Figure 16). The farmland
ownerships that received a higher score in Analysis 10 than in Analysis 1 are red
and farmland that received a lower score are blue. A majority of the decrease in
scores occurs in southwest Thurston County. There is a marked change in priority
52
Figure 16. Map of the difference between farmland scores from Analysis 1 and 10.
farmland for preservation when Analysis 1 and 10 are compared. Also, a number
of ownerships experience very little change from Analysis 1 to 10. This farmland
has high quality soils that are also in close proximity to urban growth areas and
have a wide range of development potential; from Long Term Agriculture to one
residence per five acres.
53
Chapter 7: Conclusions
Given the small net gain to the overall level of farmland protection when
development rights are purchased from a Long Term Agriculture property versus
a highly developable property, the hypothesis that a more effective PDR program
is one that incorporates both agricultural and non-agricultural criteria appears to
be true. Thurston County has protected a fair amount of farmland through zoning
land Long Term Agriculture, but their focus has been largely soil quality based.
By expanding the criteria for purchasing development rights into non-agricultural
criteria a more diverse assemblage of farmland can be protected.
Two things should be kept in mind when considering the implications of
this conclusion. First, only farmers who are willing to take part in a PDR
program that includes selling their development rights for no more than the
appraised fair market value will do so. The county can only make the opportunity
available to those farmers who wish to use it. If a farmer does not want to take
part in the program, they do not have to participate.
Second, there are two important criteria that are not included in this
analysis. The first is the cost of purchase of development rights. The money to
be used to purchase development rights is public money, and to that end needs to
be used responsibly. If PDR selection criteria are weighted towards farmland
under threat of development, the cost of the program will increase and in the end
fewer acres will be protect by PDR. On the other hand if the program is focused
towards farmland in Long Term Agriculture that is under little to no threat from
development, the cost of the PDR program will decrease and in the end more
54
acres will be protected by PDR. However, in the latter example by protecting
land already zoned Long Term Agriculture the county would be effectively taking
farmland that is currently 90% protected and making it 100% protected, as
opposed to protecting land that is more expensive and only 5% to 15% protected
(USDA, 2001).
Since 2006 the state of Washington has purchased easements and fee
acquisitions on approximately 50,000 acres of farmland. Of those 50,000 acres
nearly 14,000 acres representing 124 projects have been west of the Cascades.
Washington State spent an average of just over $7,000 dollars per acre on those
124 projects (State Agency Land Acquisitions, 2009). This is well over the
national average of $2,000 per acre cited earlier. It remains to be seen where the
cost of purchasing development rights in Thurston County falls in the $2,000 to
$7,000 range.
The second PDR selection criterion that is not included in this analysis is
the voice of the people. The creation and operation of a PDR program is a public
choice issue. It is up to the citizens of Thurston County to shape this program and
make it work by expressing their opinions to the decision makers; planners and
elected officials (Adelaja et al., 2007). An effective PDR program in Thurston
County stands to protect thousands of acres of farmland, thus preserving
agriculture in Thurston County for generations to come. The citizens need to
voice their desire for a PDR program with the understanding it will potentially
take a tax increase to fund. Elected officials need to withstand the potential
pressure from those individuals or groups who stand to profit from the
55
development of rural Thurston County. It is not just farmland that is at stake, it is
a way of life and the key to a more sustainable Thurston County.
The urban nature of agriculture in Thurston County can not be ignored, the
converse needs to happen. We need to be embracing agriculture, not treating it
like an adjacent temporary use destined for development. If we can preserve the
land farmers will preserve the act of farming. The impermanence syndrome that
supposedly befalls farmers in the face of development is largely unproven; in fact,
there is evidence from the Midwest of farmers expanding production in
metropolitan areas (Sharp & Smith, 2004). In Thurston County a farmer with 20
acres of land zoned one residence per five acres adjacent to or within an urban
growth area only feels impermanence because they know how much money they
stand to make when their property is developed.
It is a failure of zoning for the public good when one farmer loses the
development value of their farmland and another gets to cash in on the
development value. We need to be protecting all of our farmland with very low
development densities, and we need to be compensating all farmers for the loss of
development value. The time has passed when we can sit back and wait for the
new five year agriculture census to see how agriculture in Thurston County has
changed. We have an opportunity to be proactive and responsible in how we
protect agriculture. Every year that goes by that we do not act is a year wasted.
Over time farmland will be lost and the cost of acting to protect farmland will
only increase.
56
In the face of the potential loss of farmland in Thurston County a number
of groups are working both locally and statewide to preserve farmland. Locally
the South of the Sound Community Farm Land Trust is actively seeking to
purchase farmland, and the Thurston County Agriculture Advisory Committee
will soon release their Working Lands Plan with the goal of increasing the role of
Thurston County in farmland preservation. At the state level, the American
Farmland Trust is actively involved in farmland preservation policy and research,
and the Washington State Office of Farmland Preservation is actively preserving
farmland and has just begun a farmland inventory for the entire state of
Washington. The leadership of these groups and others like them will be
necessary for Thurston County to successfully preserve farmland and the practice
of agriculture for generations to come.
57
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Appendix
Figure 17. Results of Analysis 1 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.80, ownership size 0.10, &
farm area 0.10.
Figure 18. Results of Analysis 2 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.75, ownership size 0.10, farm
area 0.10, & distance from urban areas 0.05.
63
Figure 19. Results of Analysis 3 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.70, ownership size 0.10, farm
area 0.10, & development threat 0.10.
Figure 20. Results of Analysis 4 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.65, ownership size 0.10, farm
area 0.15, development threat 0.10, & limited by current use agriculture.
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Figure 21. Results of Analysis 5 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.50, ownership size 0.10, farm
area 0.10, development threat 0.20, & distance from urban areas 0.10.
Figure 22. Results of Analysis 6 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.40, farm area 0.20, critical
aquifer recharge areas 0.20, development threat 0.10, & certified organic 0.10.
65
Figure 23. Results of Analysis 7 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.30, farm area 0.20,
ownerships size 0.10, development threat 0.10, current use agriculture 0.10, distance from urban areas
0.10 & conservation district customer 0.10.
Figure 24. Results of Analysis 8 with criteria weighting of: soil quality 0.20, farm area 0.20,
development threat 0.20, current use agriculture 0.10, distance from urban areas 0.10, local habitat
assessment 0.10, & direct market 0.10.
66
Figure 25. Results of Analysis 9 with criteria weighting of: development threat 0.30, distance from
urban areas 0.15, current use agriculture 0.15, soil quality 0.10, conservation district customer 0.10,
critical aquifer recharge areas 0.10, & direct market 0.10.
Figure 26. Results of Analysis 10 with criteria weighting of: distance from urban areas 0.4, critical
aquifer recharge areas 0.25, current use agriculture 0.15, ownership size 0.10, & farm area 0.10.
67