COM 0045.024 2002-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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AFT regularly promotes the many benefits of agriculwra] land beyond producing food and these multiple benefits may include wastewater recycling, open space and/or renewable energy production. But the main point of our rhetoric is that the land is first and foremost agricultural land. The multiple benefits come along for the ride. If an IAL designation system allows for lands that are otherwise not agricultural in nature but important for other purposes to be identified as Ag, I think it will have the same diluting effect that the current system has had and the impasse between landowners and land preservationists will not be bridged. A system for identifying these non-agricultural, environmentally important lands is probably in order. Perhaps in the process of identifying IAL, with new S&C, there is also now an opportunity to add lands to the Conservation designation to provide protection for those lands that are now recognized as important for environmental values not fully understood or appreciated when the original designations were made. Another thought is that if buffering agricultural areas from more developed land uses is what is at the heart of this criterion, then it should be encouraged that counties do just that, i.e.: in their planning process development zones would become less dense and more rural in nature the closer you got to the ag district boundary (I will be soon forwarding a map to Ruby from Montgomery County, MD that clearly illustrates this type of graduated density). Also, outside of areas designated as Ag, there could be more conservation-development rules (providing for clustering and open space protection) incorporated into zoning designations and subdivision regulations. • The last two criteria that were listed for debate and discussion are really covered by earlier ones. For example, if you achieve #7, you should take care of major nuisance issues. And #s 1, 2/3, 4 and 7 all get at identifying "lands that support agriculture important to that region." As I have listened to the discussions and debates in Hawaii over land use designations, it has seemed That while the main concern is identifying IAL, there is also a companion need to re-visit the other land use designations, especially Rural and Conservation. Like the Rubik's cube puzzle, moving one piece effects the entire outcome. When I look back at criterion #6, I'm reminded that the key to protecting farniland is as much about identifying where to develop, as it is what to protect. So allowing the counties to expand the Rural designation with new standards for development in conjunction with a more refined identification of Ag with stronger protections will get at many of the tensions that currently swirl around the Ag area and development therein. Similarly, refining the designation of the Conservation area may capture some of the land targeted by the criterion proposed to address other environmentally valuable lands. 7