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Debbie Brasket: Preserving Farmland with Sustainability
It’s exciting to see new movements to preserve agriculture and promote local farms springing up on all sides. More and more people are becoming aware of the importance of supporting local farming in creating a sustainable future.
Too often, however, efforts to preserve agriculture have been co-opted by neighborhood preservationist groups more interested in preserving the views from their backyards than preserving farmland. Their aim is to preserve the status quo and oppose efforts to build affordable housing anywhere near them.
But it’s becoming clear you can’t really talk about preserving ag land without also talking about building denser housing in urban areas, and weaning ourselves away from using cars as our sole mode of transportation. To accommodate the modest growth that our area experiences each year (less than 1 percent on average), we need to provide housing — especially for the folks who work here. Exporting our housing needs to other communities (or counties!) is not living sustainably, within our resources.
Interestingly, some of the same people who don’t want high-density housing in their neighborhoods aren’t all that fond of mass transit either. For them, the solution to traffic congestion is to build more and more lanes, roads, freeways and parking spaces. But where would all those highways and parking lots be built? All too often, on land that could be productively farmed.
The fact is, any practical dialogue about preserving agriculture needs to include a serious conversation about providing housing and sustainable transportation for future generations. Creating a sustainable future will require balancing our needs for housing, agriculture and transportation.
Here are some key strategies for sustainability that will also help to preserve farmland:
» Building denser housing in urban/ suburban areas. High-density housing development, including multistory buildings, can still be attractive, still include open public spaces, small parks or community gardens or urban farms.
» Creating more mixed-use zoning so commercial development includes second-story apartments, and single-residence neighborhoods can build granny units.
» Building compact, walkable communities that include small grocery stores and playgrounds, so people walk more and drive less.
» Creating road systems more convenient for biking and walking. Reducing the size of parking lots so people will be encouraged to leave their cars home and walk or bike whenever possible.
» Funding more alternative transportation, including ride-sharing and van pool programs. Developing more public transit and using parking and developer fees to help fund it.
Without looking at all these strategies together, we are not likely to be successful in preserving farmland. Even if people understand the benefits of local produce and supporting local agriculture, if we don’t also build denser housing communities in urban/suburban areas, and build fewer freeways and parking lots, we are still not going to be able to preserve enough ag land to sustain future generations.
Scientists tell us that the way we are living now is simply not sustainable. It would take the resources of four earths to support our current population at the level that Americans now enjoy. And we soon would run out of land for growing food — it would all be covered over with housing and freeways.
But it doesn’t have to come to that. We can begin to make the needed changes now. Our quality of life will not be diminished by living in a denser, walkable community with convenient bus systems so we aren’t dependent upon cars to get around. And we can preserve land for growing food, in the process.
If you want to preserve farmland, you also need to be a firm advocate for sustainability — creating high-density, affordable housing in urban/suburban areas, and sustainable transportation systems.
— Deborah Brasket is executive director of the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SB CAN). She can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 805.722.5094. This commentary originally appeared in the Santa Maria Times.
Comments
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» on 06.21.09 @ 06:51 AM
Let’s start with where we are now. Our roads need to have sidewalks so that those willing to walk aren’t forced into traffic or potholed fields. Emminent domain ought to apply to feet, not just wheels. Walkers have no rights now - let’s create some. Unfortunately the only funding available for sustainable living seems to be coming from developers - hence the lists start with housing creation. Can we fix what we have now, please?
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» on 06.21.09 @ 09:43 AM
It is refreshing to read someone who has thought through the philosophy of “not in my back yard” (urban development). People say they support agriculture and open space in theory, but in practice if they move into housing next to it they object to agricultural practices. People in Santa Barbara County and counties like it keep spreading out, not up—usually into the best agricultural land. Agriculture in this county is also a major industry that supports the economy. Put your thinking hats on and figure it out for yourselves.
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» on 06.22.09 @ 05:21 AM
Thank you so much for all that you wrote. It is the truth and hopefully with more voices and support as yours people will wake up and see the value in all that needs to change.
Keep writing and the vision moving forward.
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» on 06.22.09 @ 08:12 AM
Deborah,
Though I applaud your efforts at providing housing here, where people work, and doing it in a manner that promotes more efficient transportation, all the while promoting conservation of resources (what is now referred to erroneously as sustainability), the way your ideas are articulated to the public in general, will not only not work but further erode the relationship between housing advocates and the public at large. So let me help you out here.
The housing advocacy groups need to have more of a vision for housing than just build it anyway, anywhere. That vision starts with what you want the community at the neighborhood, urban center and regional metropolis levels to look and feel like. It means customizing the advocacy for development that makes sense within communities. For example, the Citrus Village development in Goleta verses the Kenwood development in the same neighborhood. One development is 12 units in a dense multistory building crammed on to a parking lot of a 7-11 where as the other is lower density over a larger lot with 60 units surrounded by like density development. The smart growth advocates would jump on the first development with eager intensity and say that is the way to do it. They would be wrong. Wrong scale, density and type for the neighborhood. The second alternative though more units and covering more ground is closer to the neighborhoods surrounding characteristics and a much better fit. Does this mean the Citrus development is bad? No, just the location. It would be better suited in downtown Goleta or Santa Barbara or another dense urban core.
So how does one develop a vision to help guide what should be built where and why? It does not come from committees or think tanks or “consensus building teams”. I’m sorry but these instruments are great when there is no vision or leadership but are very poor at producing anything of higher than mediocre value. The very nature of compromise guarantees the lowest common denominator is the result. Great vision comes from individuals. Great leadership recognizes great vision and leads the rest of us ignoramuses to the same conclusion.
Please take a look at some of my other responses to your housing advocacy. You will see the outline of an urban development vision that is both broad based and regional and detailed to the very smallest of neighborhood developments. A community’s development can both accommodate the concerns of preservationist, environmentalist and urban planning professionals but only if a core vision of greater, not lesser, expectations is presented. We need to stop being the “we can’t do it” nation and once again start being the “we can do it” nation and that starts right here in our own approach to community development.
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