agriculture and development

Navigating Development, Food & Soil in Missoula County

This year, the Missoula City Council rejected the first subdivision in part because of the agricultural value of the land it would divide. Thursday, developers, regulators and advocates gathered to start unraveling the knotty issue of how food, ag, soil and houses can coexist in the county.

By Matthew Frank, 8-01-08

In Missoula County, less than 8 percent of the land is suitable for agriculture. Which is why Paul Hubbard of Community Food and Agriculture Coalition said Thursday, "There's no need in having lots too big to mow and too small to farm."

	The developers that have the easiest time will be the ones that come up with creative solutions. - Mary McCrea, OPG

Hubbard was speaking before City Council and the County Commission as part of a panel discussion on agriculture and development in the Missoula Valley.

As Missoula grows, houses are sprouting up in the few areas in the valley where food can. And so CFAC, sanctioned by the county in 2005, has begun to offer recommendations on individual developments' potential impacts to agriculture, a consideration required by state law and local growth policies.

Early in the year, City Council rejected a subdivision proposal in part because of the soils that would have been lost, marking the first time agricultural value influenced such an outcome.

But for developers, now needing to account for the importance of soils in their subdivision proposals, when already navigating a thick regulatory rulebook, is tough to swallow.

It's a knotty issue, and increasingly contentious, and the conversation continued in Council chambers Thursday.

Natural Resources Conservation Service soil scientist Neal Svendsen kicked off the meeting with a 45-minute presentation on farmland classification and soil surveys, surveys that have been key to CFAC's recommendations. The take-home message was that soil surveys, because of their scale, cannot be used for site-specific planning. "You still have to go out and dig holes," Svendsen said.

(Click the image at right to download a PDF of Svendsen's presentation.)

	Click the image to download a PDF of Svendsen's presentation

In addition to Hubbard, the panel discussion that followed included Grass Valley farmer Jim Cusker, Montana Northwest Company planner Deb Evison, lawyer and real estate developer Zane Sullivan, and Office of Planning and Grants projects manager Mary McCrae. OPG director Roger Millar moderated.

"I don't see houses and food as being mutually exclusive," Hubbard said, seemingly attempting to temper the two-on-two debate-like structure of the panel. Instead, he called for a change in designs so developments can accommodate both. In general, Hubbard wants to see more housing, perhaps in higher densities, built on degraded soils instead of prime.

One of the questions that's been asked is whether developers can market farmland as an amenity, like a river or a mountain view, and Millar posed it to Sullivan and Evison. Sullivan's answer, in short, was maybe. And he raised one of the developers' main sticking points, as became clear: the vague definition of agriculture. "What are we talking about when we talk about farmland?" Sullivan asked. Commercial agriculture? Truck gardens? Community gardens? Personal gardens? "From a developer's standpoint, that definition will make all the difference in the world." And it means different things to different people, he said. For some, "Rosauers is their source of private gardening."

Evison added, "If (the land) has been fallow for 20 years, is that ag land?"

Cusker agreed that the definition has been "nebulous," and he pointed out it was recently updated to include soils.

But Sullivan responded by saying "soils classification is a myopic view." More important, he said, is the "economic reality." He argued it makes more sense to have, say, 250 people live where there are already infrastructure and services, like in the Target Range and Orchard Homes areas (where there are also prime soils), than just one farmer.

It's not nearly that black and white, and in fact it's a point CFAC and developers seem to agree on -- refusing growth where there's infrastructure can lead to sprawl, increasing the costs to tax payers and carving up other agricultural lands.

Evison articulated another of the developers' arguments: property rights. For some landowners, subdividing their land "is their one shot at that brass ring. How can you tell them to donate land to the community…?"

Audience members occasionally spoke up with questions. One asked about the feasibility of donating topsoil. Can topsoil and land be separated?

"Mechanically, of course," Cusker said wryly, and he segued into the long-term value of soil today's economics can't quantify. "You don't go about doing something to harm the food security of the population that will be here in the future," he said.

That -- the short-term economics of development vs. the long-term importance of agricultural soils -- is at the heart of the problem.

County Commissioner Jean Curtiss then chimed in. "When we talk about economics, is it economically smart to be trucking in food from who knows where?" She brought up gravel as an analogy. "You have to get gravel where the gravel is," she said, just like you have to farm where the good soil is.

Another audience member asked about how the community can be assured ag land adjacent to a development will actually be farmed.

Hubbard mentioned CFAC's nascent Land Link program, a component of which connects farm/ranch seekers with landowners who want their land to be in production. But that's not the only answer, he said, and the question calls for more creative thinking and collaboration.

Toward the end, each panel member gave a closing statement. Hubbard said, "We're glad agriculture is part of the conversation." One common objective he pointed to was that all parties get stuck "looking at properties piece-by-piece. As Zane mentioned, that doesn't provide a lot of predictability."

Sullivan reiterated his concerns regarding property rights. "Are we telling owners that they have to be perpetual stewards of land they can do nothing with?" He's OK with ag values being a consideration in the subdivision review process, but it shouldn't "overpower" the other factors.

As a regulator, Mary McCrea said, "The developers that have the easiest time will be the ones that come up with creative solutions." And on one of the few things both CFAC and developers seemed to agree on -- the need for predictability in the system -- McCrae said, "(It's) going to be tough when we're relying on site-by-site investigations."

"I don't dispute the need for locally grown food," Evison said in her statement, citing post-war victory gardens. But, "We do need a better definition, and one that doesn't infringe on property rights."

Cusker, wrapping up the discussion, said with rising fuel prices the community will be more and more reliant on local food, and that discussions like this are of tremendous importance. "It's only when people who are, possibly, on opposite sides of the fence get together that problems can be resolved," he said.

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