Dang- A reasonable editorial on land management in King County.

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Sunday, September 17, 2000, 07:19 p.m. Pacific

James Vesely / Times staff columnist Farms are dying, but don't blame developers

by James Vesely Times associate editorial page editor SUPPOSE you owned 135 acres of rolling pasture on a beautiful plateau two miles from Enumclaw. Before you toss that nickel into the wishing well, be careful what you desire, because the dream of a patch of open land and maybe a small farm is a dying dream in King County.

It's not that people don't want to farm, it's that many can't and never will because the clash of regulations and the economics of soil and water won't allow it.

Take the case of Louis A. Wohlman, 74, a Seattle businessman whose family ran a dairy farm back when farms close to the city still made sense. Wohlman's mother and father had the farm, but keeping a dairy herd nowadays, especially a small one , is nearly impossible in King County. Wohlman writes:

"The Enumclaw plateau is not good for agriculture; it has about three to four inches of top soil over solid clay. This means that the soil is unusable for anything except growing grass which limits agriculture to horses and/or cattle. And a few years ago, the government paid dairy farmers to get out of the business ... there was a surplus of milk and most dairy farmers in Enumclaw opted for this chance to get out. The only other alternative is horses and the thoroughbred industry is dying along with the racing industry."

"I just read of a dairy farm in Indiana that will have 54,000 head," Wohlman told me from his Seattle office. "How can anyone compete with something like that?"

Without a sustainable dairy market, the next question is: What do you want to do with your 135 acres?

"It's just gorgeous," Wohlman said of the family's farmland. "You see Rainier, but you can't do much but look at it." Here's why:

"I have 135 acres on main roads two miles from Enumclaw," Wohlman said. "Twenty acres is divided into two, 10-acre plots. The remaining 115 acres is zoned agriculture and has a limit of one house for 35 acres. This limits the breakup of the 115 acres to three parcels, like 35, 35 and 45 acres. Probably difficult to sell."

It sure would be. Wohlman said real-estate agents put the price of the land at $12,000 an acre, but who except a millionaire could buy 35 acres for only one home? Small guys and families are out of the picture. So, the land won't be farmed, can't be sold and sits there.

"We have the farm leased to people who raise Arabians, but they need only 35 acres," Wohlman continued. "And you can't charge rent commensurate with value because they could not afford it. Also, it is becoming a real hassle to have animals in King County - we had to fence in all the drainage ditches, control the runoff from manure and even fence in the hand-made ponds to satisfy the Fish and Wildlife people.

"They're probably right," he said. "We don't want farm runoff going into the streams anywhere near people and I understand the larger question of stream protection, but then how can you graze horses?"

All the while, Enumclaw is rapidly changing from rural to suburban.

"The planners have an opportunity to give people in the area what they want. The idea that this area is for agriculture is ridiculous. Enumclaw is a bedroom community. People want a structured, secure place to live with access to schools, parks, recreation, fields, places to walk, run and hike, ride bikes, handy shopping, good roads. The last thing they need is a stinky farm next to them."

Wohlman is not going belly up because of the taxes he pays on his farmland. He is a successful Seattle executive and not a charity case by any means. But he can't farm and he can't develop. Wohlman and others are caught in the vise of the changing face of King County. It's one thing to wring our hands over saving the last of the county's family farms, but farms are not post cards; each one is a little economic engine.

"Just give me an idea what to do," he asked. The official answer is TDRs. The interesting idea of Transferable Development Rights is part of King County's larger strategy for farmland preservation. The idea is that a developer buys the Wohlman farm, leaves it untouched and in exchange is allowed to build taller buildings in Seattle with those credits.

Great idea, but so far there's more farmland than places interested in accepting more density. And TDRs depend on a red-hot economy to create a demand for larger office buildings.

Instead, the Wohlman farm is a transfer of values rather than a transfer of development rights. In urban King County, we get to feel good that zoning and regulations have saved places like the 135 acres on the Enumclaw plateau from development, but we pay no price for it. We have transferred our city values of what rural King County should be onto the people who live there. They are expected to live happily ever after in the glass display cabinets we have made for them.

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), September 18, 2000


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