Snohomish County, the fast-growing county north of Seattle, is seeing a boom in the cost of housing and development. This boom brings extreme pressures to turn agricultural lands into subdivisions – pressures that are usually kept in check by local rules that have been agreed upon by local people to protect the character of our community and reduce these impacts on things like traffic, sewer systems and capacity for services like first responders. There is an initiative on the ballot to roll back those protections – Initiative 933.
Farmers like me are opposed to I-933 because it would deal a crushing blow to our efforts to keep farmland in production and protected from irresponsible development.
Our pumpkin patch, started in the 1980s and still a thriving family farm, is one example of how keeping farmland benefits the community, protects our way of life and makes Washington a great place to live. I cannot overstate how serious of a threat I-933 is to our way of life and our business. As the Skagit Valley Herald editorialized back in July – “If I-933 is approved by voters and fully implemented as intended, the scenery will change dramatically. When the dominoes start to fall, you can kiss farming good-bye in Skagit County.” The same goes here in Snohomish County.
So what’s I-933 really about? After all, the promoters claim to have support of farmers. I-933 would create special loopholes for a privileged few so that they could build whatever they want, wherever they want to. And if you and I try and stop them, the law would require that taxpayers’ money be used to pay those folks the amount they claim they could have made by creating some irresponsible development.
I can tell you what I-933 is not about – eminent domain. Nope, not one eminent domain law would change. But instead we’d be forking over a pile of money to make some people follow the laws the rest of us do. I’m talking about a big pile of money, too.
You don’t have to take my word for it. The state’s Office of Financial Management estimates that if I-933 passes, taxpayers would be on the hook for between $7 billion and $9 billion. That is money to pay people to follow laws that are already on the books because I-933 is retroactive.
If I-933 passes, farmers will have to compete for land to cultivate with irresponsible developments. Agriculture will be fighting a losing battle. Unfortunately, they can make more money growing subdivisions that I can make growing pumpkins.
I don’t believe most of us want agricultural and community protections being held hostage by some greedy land owners. And we certainly don’t want to have to pay a ransom to get them to follow the rules that protect our way of life. Family farms are important to our local economy and to the heritage of Washington state.
My family works hard on our farm to make ends meet. And we want our tax dollars doing good for our community. The last thing we need is for taxes to be used to pay some property owners and corporations to follow the law, while reducing the money available for better schools, safer roads and increased security. And that is exactly what I-933 would require.
While it is true that agriculture in Washington would be carved like a 20-pound pumpkin, the reasons to oppose I-933 go well beyond the concerns about farmland and taxes.
One nightmarish outcome of I-933 would be increased traffic congestion as a result of half-baked developments popping up in rural areas all around without a road system to handle it. We already see traffic jams coming north to Monroe or Marysville or Arlington. There are similar places in the Puget Sound region where traffic jams are a daily fact of life. But our local communities are trying to address these problems. I-933 would require that we allow these irresponsible developments to be built regardless of the consequences on our roads.
Help keep our taxes going to what they are supposed to pay for, and protect farmland to keep farmers in business. Vote no on I-933.
Mark Craven, a member of the Snohomish County Farm Bureau, owns a 70-acre farm and pumpkin patch in Snohomish. More information: www.noon933.org.
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