It
gets worse. San Diego County recently rewrote the general plan to make
all close in rural land 10 acre minimum lots to preserve agricultural use on
these properties. However, when you come in with your subdivision 5-6 or
more of each 10 acres is mitigated to open space. Can't touch it, certainly
can't use it for agriculture. Lop off another acre fro the house and you
have, oh 2 acres left for agriculture.
And
if someone already farmed that land, but you didn't for the last couple years,
well now its "disturbed natural habitat" and you have to mitigate that
too!
Every agency is pulling in opposite directions all with the same
stated intent of preserving land for all of us to enjoy. The result is
that most of the natural habitat looks pistol whipped, the streams are clogged
because you can't clean them out and our trails are disappearing because
walking on a deer trail through the open space is humans disturbing the
habitat.
For
the 85 acres we want to subdivide, so far we have spent $50,000 just to
establish what habitat we have and what threatened or endangered species might
reside there. If we were to actually tell the truth, 82 of these 85
acres have been FARMED within the last 10 years and the entire habitat was
GONE at one point. But we can't tell the truth, because then they'd
mitigate the whole thing and we couldn't build anything on the property.
Now, remember, this is land they just voted to preserve for agriculture - but
if you went in to get a farm permit, you couldn't have one, because the prior
owner disturbed (FARMED) the land.
If
anyone can make sense out of this, please explain it to
me!!!
I
was trained as a wildlife biologist and the entire county/state/federal
plan(s) strikes me as just plain stupid.
Alison A. Farrin
Innovative Pension
Innovative
Retirement Services
858-748-6500 x 107
alison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Heidi I think you did an excellent job of
responding to Mike's post. As a farmer I also take offense to his comments
about "sterilizing" creekbeds in wanting a" few more yards of crops". We are
required to maintain a 25 foot filter strip next to anything that comes
close to being classified as a stream. On my 200 acres of grassland we have
two such "streams". Since this 25 foot zone needs to be maintained on both
sides you have a 50 feet zone multiple this by the 1.5 mile length and
you now have 7,920ft*50ft=396,000sq.ft/43,560sq feet/acre=9.09 acres that is
removed from production. I bought this land ,pay taxes on it,can't use it
and....this is the good part still have to control noxious weeds on it. Anyone
care to help me cut down thistles in August? As if this is not enough there is
a move to have the filter strips increased to 50 feet or greater each side of
waterways. Most people would consider this more than a "few
yards"
