Deal could protect farmland

A land deal between farmers and developers could protect thousands of acres of fertile farmland in the Stillaguamish Valley.

Snohomish County is the broker working to bring the sides together with a program to protect farmland and tempt developers to help.

Whether the farmers and builders can agree to a price will be the key hurdle.

Kevin Nortz / The Herald Ricardo Ramirez of Monroe works to winterize Western Nursery Sales on Monday afternoon. The nursery is replacing a former dairy farm in the Stillaguamish Valley, where the county is trying to preserve farmland.

“It will help if they get the dollar figure right,” said Laurin Foster, 72, a retired dairy farmer who owns 100 acres in the valley.

The tug-of-war over these 3,400 acres of land started decades ago. It is a separate battle from Dwayne Lane’s push to move his Arlington car dealership closer to I-5.

Once home to thousands of dairy cows, the valley faces ever-growing development pressure. Stagnant wholesale milk prices have resulted in the sale of most of the dairy herds.

But the land remains, and so does the desire that miles of commercial farmland shouldn’t be chopped up for mansions and hobby farms.

The time to save farmland is now, said Snohomish County Councilman John Koster, who worked his family’s dairy farm just down the valley.

“We may not get another shot at it,” Koster said.

The Snohomish County Council on Wednesday will consider a program that backers say motivates farmers to sell their building rights to developers, with the understanding that nobody is going to turn the farm into a subdivision.

Participating developers would be allowed to build more housing elsewhere, in this case on rural land east of Arlington.

By some calculations, developers could build between 1,300 and 2,000 suburban homes on that land under the program. Otherwise, developers would be limited to about 147 units.

Farmers would get cash, possibly tens of thousands of dollars, for not allowing development.

Foster doubts the county’s program will sufficiently entice developers.

“I don’t think they’re even going to get close,” Foster said.

Developers Marty Robinett, Noel Higa and Tom Ehrlichman have teamed up to try.

“They are very, very difficult things to get to work,” Higa said, because farmers, developers and other landowners all need to make a buck.

“It’s a real delicate balance,” he said. “If any one of those three get greedy, it will either cost too much money or you won’t make enough money, and it won’t work.”

Higa is still optimistic, even if he doesn’t know what price farmers might accept.

Foster said one friend got $800,000 for selling eight acres outside of the valley to a developer. Compared to paydays like that, farmers aren’t all that excited by the $10,000 an acre that some projections show under the preservation program, Foster said.

“They’ve got to do a lot better than that,” Foster said.

Snohomish County officials have debated using this technique to save farmland since 1981, four years before the first national Farm Aid concert.

At the time, a Snohomish County agricultural preservation plan called for a program to buy farmland, but a committee later said the timing wasn’t right. The county had land to spare and the pressure to develop farmland wasn’t sufficiently intense.

Fast-forward to the 1990s and the county reconsidered the idea, hiring consultants and paying for studies. But each time, number-crunchers said the market just wasn’t quite there.

“Within the past three years, it’s been much more serious,” county planner Tom Niemann said. “The pressure on farmland has increased.”

Farmers universally prefer to see cows and crops growing on their land, said Don Stuart, northwest field director of American Farmland Trust, which works to preserve agricultural land.

“Among all the other pressures, the land pressure is immense,” Stuart said. Farmers don’t have to sell the farm if they can instead use a program to sell just the development rights.

Without preservation, will there even be 100-acre farms a half century from now?

“One has to legitimately wonder if there’s going to be one,” Stuart said.

Snohomish County’s ordinance sounds workable, he said. “There’s no reason that kind of set up can’t work.”

Still, such programs have mixed success nationwide, he said.

Snohomish County has bought building rights from farmers with tax dollars, called a Purchase of Development Rights program.

Under the proposed Transfer of Development Rights program, taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook if developers could be persuaded to join the mix.

The Snohomish County Council has scheduled a public hearing Wednesday.

Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon said creating a program to protect farmland was a campaign promise that has “taken far too long.”

“We’re at a point in Snohomish County where agricultural investment is at a high and continuing, and I want to sustain it,” Reardon said.

Eventually, the land in question will wind up being annexed into the city of Arlington.

“For our city, that’s our front porch,” Arlington City Councilwoman Sally Lien said. “There’s no way known to mankind that I want to see that valley developed.”

But Arlington-area farmers are in a bind. Foster, for one, sold his dairy cows in 2000. Finding another farmer to buy his land is difficult when the industry is suffering, he said.

Foster is no longer farming. Instead, his son and daughter-in-law use the land to sell produce grown elsewhere. They also have pumpkin patches, an annual corn maze and even sell antiques. Foster wonders how long they can turn a profit. Taxes and insurance on his 100 acres, with three houses, now cost $15,000.

Preserving farmland is no simple feat.

“It may look pretty, but boy, it’s expensive,” Foster said.

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.