Farmland Preservation

May 17, 2006

A great opportunity is coming to Leelanau County as citizens face a critical vote for their future. After years of work by citizens and the county-appointed farmland preservation board, Leelanau voters will decide in November whether they will support farmland preservation with their tax dollars.
They should. As sprawl takes ever larger bites out of our cherry orchards, vineyards, and farms, it is hard to think of a better investment for those dollars. That is why a citizen group, Save Leelanau Farmland, is vigorously promoting a “yes” vote on the millage, entitled “Proposal to Preserve Leelanau County Farmland.” Success will mark a new day for ongoing efforts to preserve working farmland, curb unwise growth, and more carefully guide development in Leelanau County.
When it comes to farmland preservation, Leelanau County has some catching up to do. Across the bay, Grand Traverse County’s Old Mission and Acme Townships now have farmland preservation programs. Emmet County’s Citizens for Open Space is advancing similar ideas there. There is even a good amount of similar activity occurring downstate, in rapidly urbanizing areas. These folks all see that the threat their local farms and countryside face is neither theoretical nor eventual; in fact, it is real and immediate. And the damage will be permanent.
Successful communities are those which invest in themselves—with everything from good schools to quality public services to tax incentives and recruiting efforts that reinforce or grow local industries.
Here, the local industries are agriculture and tourism. But traditional smokestack industries, small scale agriculture has traditionally received little local public help. Our farmers must compete in a merciless global marketplace that makes prosperity extraordinarily difficult to achieve or maintain. This leaves retiring farmers with only one good option: To sell their land to suburban developers for top dollar. And it makes it almost impossible for young people who aspire to farming to purchase and keep local farmland in production. The result: land that is ideally suited to grow fruits, vegetables, and livestock instead starts growing subdivisions, strip malls, and traffic jams.
Leelanau’s farmland preservation program will provide farmers with a viable option, and two other assets to the county.
First, it will help preserve the county’s tourist industry. The faster Leelanau turns into a traffic-clogged suburb, the faster people will go elsewhere to enjoy their vacations.
Second, the program saves money. Tax dollars that permanently preserve working farmland can also help steer residential and commercial growth away from the countryside and back toward where it belongs—existing village and town centers. That’s where sewers, water mains, roads, schools, stores, and public safety services are already in place. So taxpayers avoid the high cost of spreading more of that same infrastructure across the countryside. Sprawl is not only ugly; it is extremely expensive.
No wonder farmland preservation is so popular in other parts of the country, and is catching on here. It‘s a strategy that keeps communities beautiful and prosperous.
November seems far off, but it is hardly that. Right now, farmers, business people, officials, civic leaders, and others who care about farmland, our small businesses, our schools, and our community’s prosperity are working to make sure that Leelanau’s farmland preservation proposal passes. They need whatever support you can provide.
So talk to your neighbors. Show up at a meeting. Write a letter to a newspaper. Call a talk show. And support your neighbors in Save Leelanau Farmland (www.saveleelanaufarmland.com). However you choose to get involved, the time is now. The sprawl clock is ticking.

Julie Hay is the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Smart Growth policy specialist for Leelanau County. Reach her at: julie@mlui.org.