[MissoulaGov] Agriculture Preservation

[Ryan Morton]

Paul:
 
I'm not sure the City Council needs to justify why it didn't protect all of
the "best farmland."  Mitigation of adverse impacts are what are required
and that's not an absolute "either/or" scenario you describe as CFAC's
position (either protect CFAC's recommended 3 acres, or deny the
subdivision).
 
Nor do I think they need to justify why the ag use must be amenable to
CFAC's conception of ag.  What's wrong with raising horses?  Perhaps I'm too
naive and spent too much time at the County fair looking at pigs and horses.
 
In regards to your comments about sprawl and affordable housing...
 
Urban costs of land and costs of construction drive sprawl not affordable
housing.  Some areas out of the City limits end up being more affordable,
but I'm unaware of a subdivision that was approved BECAUSE of affordable
housing alone.  There were some promises made with some cluster developments
that didn't pan out, and that's certainly unfortunate.  Now, the City and
County policies can put their proverbial feet down in Missoula County, but
that won't stop sprawl (see Bitterroot, Lake, Mineral Counties as examples).
 
Bob's point about the urban infrastructure in that area is well taken.
Eventually, all land inside of the urban services boundary will experience
urban infrastructure and that resources need to be protected.  I suppose
this exascerbates the necessity of having a policy (hopefully coordinated
with the County) on ag rather than a project by project struggle.  
 
Cheers,
 
Ryan Morton
Government Affairs Director
Missoula Building Industry Association
406.543.4423 or 406.546.0902 (cell)
ryan at buildmissoula.com
 

  _____  

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Paul Hubbard
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:33 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] MissoulaGov Digest, Vol 39, Issue 5


Bob,

I appreciate your image of crops growing on terraced mountain slopes, as
Missoula continues to sprawl across its most fertile lands for the sake of
larger lawns and bigger homes, and sometimes in the name--and name only--of
affordable housing.  I even feel a little back pain in thinking about
constructing such terraces, and I agree with what you're implying here:
it'll be way easier to grow food on a funky shaped Agricultural Parcel at
Chickasaw than on terraced slopes.  

Still, I ask you to provide one reason why City Council would not require
that 1) the best farmland be protected (just 3 of the 9.4 acres of
exceptional soil), and 2) that it is protected in a configuration that is
amenable to agricultural use, rather than a horse estate.  

I also have to say that the way the final decision was reached to create
this funky-shaped "Agricultural" Parcel is deeply disturbing to me.  CFAC
has spent over 100 hours following this subdivision's multiple designs,
meeting with the developers, visiting the site, and attending public
hearings.  We are always transparent with our rationale--whether we are
suggesting a development would have minimal impacts to agriculture or
recommending a subdivision be denied--so that City Council can consider the
salient facts and make its own decision.  We expect the same transparency
from you.  When City Council made the motion to protect 3 acres in the SE
corner as a condition of annexation, it seemed obvious to everyone present
that I have spoken to (including some City Councilors and OPG staff) that
the motion referred the the 3 acres that OPG carefully delineated in their
staff report, which had a minimum width of 290 feet--not some undisclosed
subdivision sketch that the developer put in front of City Council at the
last minute.  Now, the "Agricultural" Parcel's width ranges from 200 feet to
300 feet to 100 feet, and a 1/4 acre lot sits on top of the best farmland.

Rather than simply dismissing our points by suggesting it's better than
farming a terraced mountain, I would ask you to justify: 1) how this shape
encourages the intended use of food production, and 2) how it mitigates the
adverse impacts to agriculture.  If we're going to lose 6.4 acres of
excellent farmland, seems the least we could do is protect the 3 acres that
stand out as the best and in a configuration that is designed for food
production.

Just for clarification, CFAC has asked that you either protect the best
farmland in a logical configuration for agricultural use--just as OPG has
delineated--as a condition of approval, or deny the project all together.
The City has a one-time opportunity to do this right.  We hope you choose to
do so.  If you can't, let the County have a chance.  It's possible we'd get
9 one-acre lots without any protected farmland.  But the County
Commissioners are realizing that under state law they, too, can either deny
a subdivision for its adverse impacts to agriculture or require conditions
of approval that truly mitigate those impacts.  Please don't lower the
City's bar out of fear for what the County will approve.

Thanks for listening and hosting this community dialogue.  It is much
appreciated, along with your efforts to grapple with growth, farmland and
food security!

Paul Hubbard
Land Use Program Coordinator
Community Food & Agriculture Coalition


On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 12:00 PM, <missoulagov-request at cmslists.com> wrote:


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Today's Topics:

  1. committee update 5-6-09 (Bob Jaffe)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 22:27:05 -0600
From: "Bob Jaffe" <BJaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us>
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 5-6-09
To: <missoulagov at cmslists.com>
Message-ID:
 
<689D48B33023A5469751A46A44C5A7A30D425B63 at mailserver.ci.missoula.mt.us>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Greetings,

This morning in Conservation we learned about an agreement the parks
department had put together with developer Kevin Mitty regarding the
park in the 44 ranch subdivision. Kevin wants to go ahead and build the
improvements in the park and get reimbursed later as the city collects
impact fees.  The estimated costs for the project are just over
$1,000,000. In the end the city will only have to pay him back around
$410,000.  It's a great deal for the city. I imagine Kevin's motivation
is that his development will be more sellable with a finished park
instead of a weed field. 44 Ranch is a very vertical project in that
Kevin Mitty developed the property, built all the houses, and now is
doing the city park improvements. It's kind of like John Didell at
Pleasantview except Kevin is working with us for parks instead of suing
us to avoid them.



In PAZ we had the dreaded Chickasaw subdivision return.  This was the
painful project out on seventh just past Tower.  We had required a three
acre Agriculture set aside and a connecting road which required the
whole thing to get redesigned. We approved it conditional on staff and
the developer bringing something back to us that met all the various
conditions we were after. They did this today and it was pretty straight
forward. There were still a few concerns including traffic calming for
the someday connection to the north and how storm water was being
handled with the shallow aquifer. The Community Food and Agriculture
Coalition didn't like the shape of the resulting agriculture parcel so
they requested we deny the project. I get this image of the terraced
farms cut into steep hillsides when they say killing the project is
better than farmland that isn't a perfect rectangle. We will finish this
one up next week.



In A&F we discussed the parking garage planned for Front and Pattee.
There are still a lot of unknowns. It will be at least 300 spaces and
some retail along front street. If there is enough money it will be 600
spaces. The downtown plan calls for 600 spaces so there is some concern
of what the implications are to the rest of the analysis in the plan if
we only build it to half size.  On the other hand I have some concerns
over the idea of induced demand. We know that if we build a road bigger
more people will drive on it. I imagine if we make parking easier
downtown more people will choose to drive there. That's fine if you are
talking about customers but not so good if you are talking about
employees. I guess I would like to see us build the bigger structure and
then allocate as much as can be used for short term parking and charge a
lot for the leased spaces to encourage commuters to develop other
habits.



In public works we had some disagreement over approving the Mayor's
choice to replace Tom Wilkins with Ginny Iverson on the parking
commission board.  The motion stalled on a tie and will be forwarded to
the floor with no recommendation.

We also agreed to accept a bunch of stimulus money for the north Higgins
street project, a project to build a whole bunch of handicap sidewalk
ramps around town, and the sidewalk project connecting Spruce to
Greenough. Some of us were expecting a fight from the more republican
sorts over the evils of stimulus money but no one had any complaints
today.



In COW we heard a report from the lobbyist we hired to work the session
for us in Helena. If you would like to see the written report it can be
found here:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2009/2009-05-04/Referrals/Le
<ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2009/2009-05-04/Referrals/Le%0A
gRptCOWRef.pdf> 
gRptCOWRef.pdf



Thanks for your interest,



Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us <mailto:bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us>

406-728-1052



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