"If your life is tied
to the soil, it is your soul. There is no price…."
A rancher offered that poignant sentiment, her voice
and image captured on a video presented at the Idaho
Land Use Summit.
The Idaho Land Use Summit that convened September 14th
in Nampa attracted a diverse group of 180 participants.
More than 60 percent of the audience was professionals
employed by government agencies and land trusts. Also
represented were private landowners, sportsmen, researchers
and Realtors.
The group gathered in the Nampa Civic Center for two
days to explore a common interest germane to that rancher's
sentiment. Eight out of 10 of the participants said
they believed that the rate of growth across Idaho is
happening too fast.
In the registration survey for the conference,
rural qualities of life were ranked with respect to
the negative impact of growth. Respondents identified
the following rural qualities as threatened by rapid
growth: working farms and ranches, water quality and
habitat for wildlife and fisheries.
Idaho’s rapidly increasing population is altering
the market value of the rural landscape. The demand
for land is increasing land values, and is forcing many
farm and ranch families to trade their sense of place
for the money in the bank. Those exchanges of land in
the marketplace impact the underlying fabric of rural
communities. The summit offered a forum to describe
the growth trends in the west, assess negative impacts,
and propose policies to manage the change.
Keynote speakers included Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, Dr.
Emilyn Sheffield from California State University, Dr.
Rick Knight, Colorado State University; and Jim Martin,
Berkeley Conservation Institute. Collectively, the speakers
painted the changing portrait of the rural landscape,
from the scale of a watershed to the continental United
States.
Sen. Crapo described the 2007 Farm Bill as the most
important piece of federal conservation legislation
for rural landscapes. Dr. Sheffield provided a sweeping
summary of population growth trends and the growing
demands of the country's urban population for recreation
in rural areas. On public lands, according to Dr. Knight,
competing recreation use is the new land-use conflict.
Jim Martin captured the importance of land-use planning,
balanced with equitable treatment of the landowners.
The words of David Ricardo, a 19th-century economist
who studied economic factors of land and agricultural
production, offer an integrating theme for the presentations
made during the summit. Ricardo distinguished between
two categories: land as a physical site or location,
and land as the source for production of food and fiber.
The market tension between these two aspects of land
value was the focal point of the Idaho Land Use Summit.
Food and fiber trade in the marketplace, and land supports
their production. The inherent productivity of the land influences
its value. As the population increases, however, the value
of land shifts from production to the value of
space for buildings, roads and other structures. The
market tension for the landowner surfaces as a business
decision: continue managing the land or sell the property
for development in order to receive a higher financial
return. The tension is particularly high for farmers
and ranchers reaching retirement age. They are often
land rich, but income poor. Although they prefer not
to have their land converted to home sites, the market
offers few alternatives.
Rural-land use conversion also impacts the conservation
values of the property, and these values are external
to market prices.
Joe Hinson of the Northwest Natural Resources Group
used his keynote address to document the overlap of
private land and important conservation values provided
by the open space: clean water for fish, winter range
for migrating game, and habitat for a diversity of species
in the lower elevations of Idaho. Private lands provide
these services to the public, in addition to the food
and goods produced by farms and ranches.
In a panel discussion, Jennifer Ellis, vice-president
of the Idaho Cattle Association, noted that ranchers
"manage for a lot of minor flora and fauna. Why
can't the landowner get paid for their good management
that provides these services?"
Ms. Ellis' reasonable question maps the rugged terrain that the Land Use
Summit traversed. Private property rights, public policy
and financial incentives intersect on the trail.
Financial incentives for landowners who forego the
right to develop their property is one option explored
by the Land Use Summit and may one day be proposed as
draft legislation to state lawmakers, but Summit attendees
acknowledge that will be a tough trail to pursue.
Another
panel discussion provided an early indication of political
sensitivities surrounding this and other alternative land-use policies.
The panel, which addressed the role of government in balancing
urban and rural lifestyles with development, was a good
example of the diverse mix at the summit. Panel
members included state senators, a Commissioner of Idaho
Fish and Game, a county commissioner, the executive
director of the Idaho Association of Counties, and a
manager from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation
Service. The discussion covered many topics related
to managing development and the cost of government services.
During that panel discussion, Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett,
and Blaine County Commissioner Sarah Michael exchanged
opinions on policy alternatives to address the cost
of services.
Commissioner Michael indicated interest in a tax-credit
proposal announced at the conference. The proposed state
income tax credit would provide incentives to working
farm and ranch owners who donate development rights
via a voluntary agreement. The development rights would
be conveyed to a land trust or state agency. Michael
reasoned that rural development does not pay for public
services received, while farms and ranches payments
exceed the cost of services. For every dollar of
residential tax revenue generated from new rural subdivisions, the costs for roads, police/fire
protection, schools and other services exceed that dollar.
By contrast, local government services to a farm or
ranch family cost less than the taxes paid by the landowner
to those agencies. Sen. Little, a respected legislator
and ranch owner, favored impact fees on developers to
pay for the burden created on local governments, and
concluded that tax credits simply shift the tax burden.
The second day of the Summit included breakout sessions
to discuss solutions. Both immediate and long-term strategies
were identified in the discussion groups, and then presented
to the entire Summit. The proposed options were ranked
via a voting process, and the results are available
on the Land Use Summit Web site.
The two highest-ranked immediate strategies were: 1)
defeating Proposition 2, and 2) pursue financial incentives
to landowners. Attendees concluded that Proposition
2 would, if passed, compromise the ability of local
governments to implement land use plans. As an alternative,
financial incentives that work in conjunction with planning
were preferred. The conservation tax credit policy proposal,
announced at the conference, is a policy initiative
that will be submitted to the Idaho legislature during
the coming session.
Long-term strategies included capacity building for
rural planning and the development of education programs.
Rural counties and communities often lack staff and
revenue sources to fund their planning activities. Creative
approaches to raising funds will be an important component
of the effort. Proposed education programs would target
urban K-12 programs and urban populations to communicate
the important role of resource-based industries in the
economy.
Public policy makers will be faced with challenging
alternatives that merit due consideration, deliberation
and debate. The expectation of this diverse group participating
in the Nampa meetings is an optimistic outcome. The
group expects that Idaho will find the means to maintain
the sense of place, by reaching consensus on the open
space that sustains us all.
The immediate and long-term strategies
will be presented and discussed at the Idaho
Environmental Summit, Dec. 5-7 in
Boise. The conference organizers invite continued discussion
of land use.
Editor's note: Headwaters News will continue to follow the work of this and the December conference, so stay tuned.
Dennis L. Murphy
is the Business Development Manager for Potlatch Forest
Products Corporation. He joined Potlatch Corporation
in 1985 to design and implement a geographic information
system (GIS) for the Idaho Region. The GIS provides
the technology infrastructure that supports forestland
management activities. In his current position, he manages
strategic planning and business development functions.
Prior to 1985, Mr. Murphy was Principal Scientist at
the EROS Data Center, a USGS remote sensing and GIS
research facility. In the 1970s, he experienced rural
land use planning firsthand during his tenure as the
Community Development Director for the city of Woodbury,
Minn. He holds an M.A. in Urban and Regional Planning
from Mankato State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D.
in Forestry from the University of Minnesota.
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