| Amber waves of grain are receding in place of a tidal wave
of suburban sprawl washing across Michigan's diminishing agricultural
land. Efforts to combat the deluge of development are at a crossroads. A
state program that paid farmers to not sell farmland for development was
established about five years ago, but the project has been deemed too
ambitious and expensive.
Farmers signed contracts to never sell the development rights in
exchange for an average of $1,800 per acre from the state. In Lapeer
County, 1,460 acres of prime farmland was accepted into the program.
However, Michigan is in the process of handing over its
Purchase-of-Development-Rights Program to interested counties. It still
will offer some money and is not being phased out entirely.
"There is still potential for a state program in the future if
money is there," said John Mayes of the Michigan Department of
Agriculture's farmland preservation office.
In the meantime, preservation options are being considered across the
state, such as a county in western Michigan approving a tax to raise the
money to pay farmers to bank their land. Locally, officials are
considering ways to cluster new homes and avoid gobbling up more land.
The problem
In the past 15 years, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, St.
Clair County lost 42,819 acres of farmland. That's 67 square miles in a
county of 734 square miles. It's an area nearly 10 times larger than the
city of Port Huron.
St. Clair County farmers haven't set any acres aside in the state
program. Sanilac County has about 300 acres in the program.
Experts said Michigan could lose about half its farmland in less than
50 years if the current rate of suburban development isn't checked.
Nationally, the epidemic isn't any better.
Nearly 16 million acres of land across the United States were developed
between 1992 and 1997 -- a rate of 3.2 million per year, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture reported. Between 1982 and 1992, the development
rate was 1.4 million acres a year. Michigan ranked eighth on the list of
states for acreage taken for development, losing nearly 551,000 acres
between 1992 and 1997.
Preservationists are alarmed and spreading the word.
"Continuing development of land in the future doesn't benefit the
farm economy or benefit natural resources or the environment," said
Bill Vandercook, the state agriculture department's farmland and open
space coordinator for Lapeer, Sanilac and St. Clair counties.
He said the momentum to preserve farmland can't be sidelined.
"It's imperative, the way that land is being consumed," he
said.
Changing boundary
Farmer Jim Reid, Grant Township supervisor and a member of a small
preservation group, said he met with township planning commissions around
the county last winter to discuss land preservation.
"The planning commissions and (township) boards in the rural areas
would like to do something, especially where you see a lot of houses
popping up," Mr. Reid said.
He has an idea to solve the state program's money problem by splitting
the funding sources. The program could succeed if it's funded with a 50%
contribution from the state, 35% from the county and 15% from the
township, he said.
In the end, taxpayers would pay less than they would for a new
subdivision, Mr. Reid said.
"There's more infrastructure cost with development as opposed to
farmland," he said.
Farmer Ron Pichla, 48, of Lapeer County's Burnside Township, had signed
about 240 acres into the state program. "I have no regrets so
far," he said.
He echoed the experts and said if others are going to set aside land,
support will have to come from the local level.
"The state can only offer as much as they got. If locals want
farming to stay in the area, they all have to chip in," he said.
Worth saving
Bill Kauffman, St. Clair County Metropolitan Planning Commission senior
planner, said there is very productive agricultural land in the county
worth saving -- and a way of life worth preserving.
"A lot of the reason people move here and find it attractive is
because of the open spaces. By chopping it up for 2-acre and 5-acre home
sites, we're losing that charm."
He said a solution that county planners are embracing is to cluster new
homes around the hamlets or "town centers" that were once busy
villages in the first half of the past century. Many of those towns
withered over the years, such as Adair in Casco Township, Ruby in Clyde
Township and the village of Emmett. Clustered housing could breathe new
life into them, he said.
It would mean zoning changes to allow people to build on small lots,
Mr. Kauffman said. It also would mean an investment in the infrastructure
around the town centers to provide a range of public services such as
water, sewer, police, fire and ambulance service.
"We've got to create a place where people will want to raise their
kids," he said. "A lot of it is going to depend upon the
willingness of local communities to support change."
New legislation
State Rep. Jud Gilbert, R-Algonac, said Thursday the Michigan House
approved a package that will encourage open-space preservation.
The package requires all townships, counties, cities and villages to
adopt an ordinance to protect natural resources. He said some local
governments already have reduced the consumption of land. Local
governments will retain the authority to write their own ordinances and
make decisions about the number of houses within an area.
Mr. Kauffman said many local communities already have cluster zoning in
their ordinances, and the new legislation gives another option.
"If an owner wants to preserve it as either productive ag land or
leave it as open space but still wants to get some money off of that,
he'll be able to cluster all of the homes in the wooded lot back off in
the corner somewhere and leave all of this other land as protected,"
he said.
Ken DeCock, 42, of Armada Township farms about 110 acres and runs
Boyka's Farm Market. He is part of Citizens for Quality Growth, a
preservation group seeking to preserve the Northern Five, the five
northern townships in Macomb County where most of the open space remains.
The townships are Bruce, Armada, Richmond, Ray and Lenox.
"Where are we going to find land to purchase if something isn't
done pretty soon?" Mr. DeCock said. |