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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-08-08Page 1 of 8 Dryden Agricultural Advisory Committee August 8, 2013 Members Present: Evan Carpenter (Chair), Kim LaMotte, Doug Barton, Steven Stuttle, and Joe Osmeloski Planning Board Liaison: Craig Anderson Conservation Board Liaison: Craig Schutt Town Board Liaison: Steve Stelick Guests: Mary Ann Sumner, Town Supervisor The meeting called to order at 7:32 PM by Chairman Carpenter 1. Review and approval of minutes from July 10, 2013. Doug Barton motioned to approve the minutes and Kim LaMotte seconded; all approved. 2. Debbie Teeter, Cornell Cooperative Extension Ms. Teeter was contacted by Chairman Carpenter to invite someone from her office to come to the Ag Committee to talk about Municipal Ag and Farmland Protection Plan. The County is in the process of updating it’s Ag and Farmland plan which is 20 years old. Ms. Teeter works half time in the Agriculture Department at Cornell and half time as staff for the Ag and Farmland Protection Board which means she deals with their correspondence and agenda. That is the part of her job which leads her to be involved with local Municipal Ag and Farmland Protection plans. Monica Roth, Debbie’s boss, has taken the lead with a couple of the local municipalities and she took the lead with Ithaca. At Cooperative Extension, they encourage ag plans whether you use the state funding or not; particularly a town like Dryden which has a substantial agricultural base. Ms. Teeter brought a copy of the grant application with her and explained that the application is vague, Cooperative Extension can provide assistance writing the grant; it is vague because it is a request for funds to create a plan, they don’t expect a lot of detail up front. They have worked with the Towns of Ulysses, L ansing and Ithaca. They did surveys of farmers and agricultural land owners and she brought copies of each survey. They started with breakfasts in the other towns because they didn’t have an ag riculture committee. That worked well in the sense that they were able to start forming committees but they didn’t get the feedback that they really wanted. The farmers were not ready for a discussion with their neighbors or the people sitting at the table next to them. They have thought about the future but haven’t thought about it to the point that they had started planning. Ms. Teeter feels that Cooperative Extension was able to build a great relationship with the farmers, especially in the Town of Ulysses. She passed around the survey that the Ulysses farmer group put together and that Cooperative Extension distributed to the land owners. Ms. Teeter pointed out that Cooperative Extension can offer impartiality, they are a third party, and the farmers trust them. Cooperative Extension has been talking to them all the time, and the farmers know Cooperative Extension is really there to support agriculture, get the farmers accurate information and support them if they have issues. The farmer group in Ulysses also read through the entire Town Zoning document and made individual comments about each part and whether it was positive, neutral or negative for agriculture. That was there starting place together with the information that Cooperative Extension had gathered via the surveys. In the Town of Lansing, Cooperative Extension has been somewhat less successful in continuity of the farmer group because they have had several turn-overs in leadership (supervisor and town board). The State, if you are using their grant, would like you to finish within a set time frame which is a couple of years. That is rather ambitious b ut Ms. Teeter feels that since Dryden already has an Agriculture Advisory Board, they might be ahead of the other Page 2 of 8 towns enough to actually accomplish that goal. In Lansing, it wasn’t that the Town Board didn’t support an Ag protection Plan but rather that each new supervisor or Board member had to be brought up to speed and that took a lot of time and caused a loss of momentum. At the same time Lansing was working on their ag land protection plan, Cooperative Extension was conducting an ag district review in district one. That allowed Cooperative Extension to ask the questions that Lansing wanted to know on the back of the Cooperative Extension survey. They continue to hold meetings on a monthly basis in Lansing, trying to wrap up their plan. They are about finished and Ms. Teeter’s primary role has been to oversee the surveys and then write the Agricultural Profile section of the Agriculture Plan. The Town of Ithaca’s plan is different than the Town of Dryden’s will be. They probably have 25 farm enterprises in the entire town. Ms. Teeter and Cooperative Extension was able to interview farmers on an individual basis. They compiled the data and farmers, members of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, the Supervisor, and the Town Planning Office (Mike Smith), grouped it by information such as “these are common issues, these are common complaints”. Farmer after farmer talked about issues with the Code Enforcement Office. They were having a lot of trouble getting things through and built. One person had paid $25,000 to the Town before he had even turned a shovel. That kind of process helps to consolidate the comments and makes an impression because those members of the comprehensive committee, two of them were also on the planning board and they are in this plan. There is a chart in the Ithaca plan that includes goals and action steps, they are rated as short term, medium term, long term and on-going goals. All of their goals are from the survey done by Cooperative Extension. Ms. Teeter is happy with the Ithaca Plan because it is a true representation of what the farmers have to say. If the Town of Dryden decides to get the grant and wants to work with Cornell Cooperative Extension, they usually have a memorandum of understanding of what Cooperative Extension is going to do for us and what part of the grant will go to them to do the work. They have worked with a consultant in Ulysses but truthfully, Cooperative Extension ended up redoing his work. Ms. Teeter pointed out that consultants can be great, there is a sayin g that they borrow your watch to tell you the time and in this case, the consultant looked at the documents from American Farmland Trust and pulled all of the possible farmland protection tools out and listed them. There was no indication of what might be right for Ulysses and what was simply not applicable. Supr. Sumner said that she believed that was part of the reason why they were hesitant about applying for the grant, until they learned that they could use their own Planning Department rather than a consultant. Ms. Teeter said that the Town of Ithaca could have gotten all the information that they needed except that the farmers are hesitant to talk to people on an individual basis. Even with Cooperative Extension, unless they know that no one is going to be able to identify their comments. Supr. Sumner verified that Cooperative Extension was working as the consultant for the Town of Ithaca. Ms. Teeter concurred and added that they had served in consultant capacity for Lansing as well. Ms. Teeter believes that the Town of Dryden ought to be thinking about the strong indicators that the number 1 threat is no longer development, it is access to farmland. We have seen assessment double on a lot of farmland and that is because farmland is going for a lot of money all over this county. We have a lot of land in production in this Town that wasn’t 5 years ago. 2007 was the last time Cooperative Extension did a land use/ land cover map and as it is being currently updated, it (increased amount of land being farm ed) has become obvious. C. Schutt agreed that right here, most of the competition is amongst the local farmers because there are enough big operations here looking for more land in the same general area. Supr. Sumner asked if they were pushing the price up themselves? C. Schutt responded with “absolutely, they are competing for land.” Page 3 of 8 People who are sitting on farm land are not, as feared, going to sell it for development. The reality is they want it to go for farmland. Another fear is that the farmer’s kids will sell it but by the time parent’s pass, the children are already up there and their children have the same sort of value for the land their parents’ had and they don’t want to see it go for development. They might build a house for themselves but mostly they want that land to go for farmland. When you do see development, for example - the space across from the Town Hall was kind of swampy, hard to farm and in the Village. It is interesting to see where the houses actually gone up. If you are making an assumption that the biggest threat to your farmland is development and that’s not the biggest threat and you use the wrong tools to protect your farmland….. Ms. Teeter is on the Enfield Town Board and they are updating their comprehensive plan. They got their farmers to come to a meeting and they had the big guys there (taxes were not a concern because the taxes are a small part for the farmers when compared to a fertilizer bill). Their number 1 concern was regulation. They said they are regulated enough by the State and by the Feds, mainly they wanted to be left alone to farm. Enfield also doesn’t have any zoning….. E. Carpenter pointed out that the questions on our survey from the last meeting are on with the surveys that Ms. Teeter brought with her. Not just land use but the benefits of Agriculture. Ms. Teeter feels that in Dryden, we have the attention of the farmers and have an opportunity to put a real value on Agriculture. Not just the value of the land or the gross income but livestock and equipment as well. She thinks the numbers are going to be staggering in this town. The group discussed the number of dairy farms in the Town. - Russ Beck - Jeremy Sherman - Charlie Miller - Jim Reed is raising heifers - Lloyd Kimmich - Alan Dedrick - Stuttle, Lewis and Steve In Lansing, the biggest land owner is Willet Dairy which is not even in the Town of Lansing. The Sherman farm has 2 milking parlors – one in Cortland County and one in Dryden but that farm uses a substantial amount of land in Dryden/Tompkins County. Supr. Sumner asked how Cooperative Extension knew who to send the questionnaires to? Ms. Teeter responded that they work with assessment - anyone who gets an agriculture assessment gets the questionnaire. She added that Cooperative Extension likes to work with Dryden and is working with the Town before on the Purchase of Development Rights. Ms. Teeter also commented on the fact that her farm is in the Town of Ithaca but fortunately they are not planning on building anything. C. Anderson stated that he doesn’t understand why they are so difficult. Ms. Teeter responded that she believes it is true all over, her husband is the CEO in Enfield, and there are always folks that push the line wherever they can and that causes some defensiveness. A culture seems to have developed there. Supr. Sumner asked who was pushing the line? Farmers or Code Enforcement? Ms. Teeter responded that it was developers coming in and trying to get away with things, that is who the CEOs tend to see. Farmers are few and far between when they come in to put up a barn or farm stand. Supr Sumner –Stated that this is an interesting group with an interesting direction. The Town Board is interested in a Farmland plan that can be part of the Open Space Plan along with Conservation and Recreation. She senses that is less urgent amongst this group, and probably farmers in general, than an overall promotion and support of farming. A survey like this that Page 4 of 8 gets farmers talking to each other and to us, even though it is not very directly related to our Open Space Plan, it is probably a more important first step. Ms. Teeter added that the Town of Ulysses is very interested in finishing their survey because they were updating their comprehensive plan, and this is the kind of thing that informs a comprehensive plan or the development of an open space plan. We know that all open spac e is not farmland but all farmland is open space. It is important to keep that distinction – there is the working landscape and then there is the passive landscape. Supr. Sumner – added that she thinks of farmland as a finite natural resource and not all of it that is suitable farmland is being farmed now and it would be nice to get a grip on that as well as the active farmland. E. Carpenter concurred adding that there is land that has been farmed within the last 10-15 years and is not currently being farmed but could be again with the right TLC. Supr. Sumner – it seems like the sort of thing, if we are moving to farmland protection, to evaluate. Ms. Teeter said that one thing all towns touched on was the possibility of helping identify through county planning, idle or abandoned agricultural land. Some is abandoned for a good reason but it might be amendable – equipment (horse versus tractor) and technology are changing. She shared a story about a farmer in Ulysses who bought approximately 70 acres of land, 40 of which are tillable and he has people knocking on his door asking if he is going to farm it and if not, can they rent it? If the land is there, the farmers are knocking on doors asking to use it. Supr. Sumner – not if it is been out of production so long that it will take some redevelopment, that is a big investment. E. Carpenter stated that depends on how much investment is there. Ms. Teeter believes that educating and creating a good relationship with the non-farmers is key. She pointed out that it is a lot easier to work a field without a hedgerow down the middle. Ithaca plan has a section for agriculture on the Town website that includes information such as where you can buy beef, or vegetables or how to join a CSA. It is a place they can market for free. If you have a question about agriculture or you are a farmer that has a question, the website has links. Mike Smith is a liaison for Agriculture and he will work betw een code enforcement and the farmers. Supr. Sumner asked if there is a sense in the room that code enforcement is a problem? Ms. Teeter said no and she is not suggesting that. C. Anderson asked if she was referring to Dryden or Code Enforcement in gener al? Dryden needs to make a set of rules for agriculture because you get different opinions from different inspectors. He shared his story – when he was putting up a barn he drew up plans and then went back and forth on whether he needed a permit. And then he dug footings and called for inspection but no one seemed to know if an inspection was necessary. He took pictures and tried to cover himself. He has heard stories of other people for whom it was easier. He wants it to be clear so everyone understands the rules. Ms. Teeter said that Cooperative Extension has often talked about the need for a regular meeting for town officials with ag and markets. In the Town of Enfield they a put in their draft plan a requirement for town officials to attend a training with Ag and Markets every two years. Supr. Sumner stated that she was told by the Town lawyer that Town Board members cannot be required to attend any training. For Planning Board, training is required. Ms. Teeter said that the State Ag and Markets says that Towns may require a permit for an agriculture structure but they cannot make the process onerous. Supr. Sumner agreed and C. Anderson added that he supported that process, a site plan review would be good so they know they are building on their own property. Page 5 of 8 C. Anderson said that he thinks a lot of the information (surveys) would be valuable for the Open Space Plan. He then asked what the pros and cons of agriculture protection plan that Ms. Teeter is aware of? Ms. Teeter responded that the big pro is you come out of it really knowing the agriculture in your town; and you identify and address problems. In the Town of Dryden where we have already had some farms selected for the State Purchase of Development program, if you have your own Ag and Farmland protection plan you don’t have to go through the County. You can approve it within your town which she believes was part of the impetus for the State for making funds available at the Town level because having to go to the County just adds one more st ep. And it will encourage towns to really take a look at their agriculture. Cons – one thing they saw in the Town of Ithaca was follow through and what they were doing with the plan which the Town Board does up-hold, there were some conflicts with the Comprehensive Plan when it came out in the open space section. There were some people on the Conservation Committee that disagreed. One example is the group that thought that houses should be torn down along Seven Mile drive and turning it into farmland because Armageddon is coming. When the plan came out, they had the plan which followed pretty closely to the draft, but then they had a second opinion which was by the other faction and the Ag community didn’t know that was happening. Supr. Sumner said that is one reason they are looking forward to working with the Conservation Board, the Planning Board, the Ag Committee and Recreation Commission to get all three facets close to the same page without surprises in the end. We are all going to have different leanings but she doesn’t want any last minute surprises like the second opinion in the Ithaca plan. Ms. Teeter said people have asked what agriculture will look like in 10 years which she doesn’t feel is a long enough time period – it will be basically the same as today. K. LaMotte asked if Ms. Teeter had a ballpark on the amount that will be charged to do the surveys, etc if we can convince the Town to apply for the grant? Ms. Teeter replied that the amount varied. She said that they can do as much or as lit tle as the Ag Committee wants them to. The grant is a $25,000 matching grant and you can use staff time for it. What Cooperative Extension does is keep track of their hours, and when they print or mail stuff. Cooperative Extension will discuss up front wha t Dryden wants done and what amount of time they can do it in. K. LaMotte verified that our next step will be to determine what we want to have Cooperative Extension do for us? Supr. Sumner asked if it is a rolling deadline grant? Ms. Teeter responded tha t it is, it is a get in line grant so when they have money, they take the next group in line. And she addressed the issue of state involvement if the Town gets the grant, the State will red flag anything that is a right to NOT farm, they don’t tend to get involved unless it is on the side of the farming community. Supr. Sumner asked what else Cooperative Extension will be doing? Ms. Teeter said they do a lot of analysis and writing. They are an uninterested party and thus can present the facts as they are without commentary. Returning to C. Anderson’s question regarding to pros and cons, she cannot really think of any significant cons. Supr. Sumner verified that this is not a new set of laws but a plan. E. Carpenter added a couple observations: 1. S everal decades ago, the financial institutions were encouraging farmers to sell their road frontage to help finance the farm a bit. This ended up being a hassle since they are then working in someone else’s back yard. Most farmers are NOT selling off land. Supr. Sumner interjected that there has been a sense among town officials that the development pressure is for the marginal farms that need some help to pay the bills. Ms. Teeter said that she has only heard of one farm that has done that. Supr. Sumner sees how remote it is for the working farm but abandoned farm land faces more pressure. Page 6 of 8 Ms. Teeter said that they ask when they do the ag district review, people do not want their farm land to go for development. Supr. Sumner questioned the fact that they will k eep paying the taxes even though they are not working the land? Ms. Teeter pointed out that “vacant land” is the key term and they are getting an ag assessment and/or the land is rented they would rather pay the taxes and keep the land ag. E. Carpenter’s 2nd point is as far as the survey, the Town might be surprised as how much conservation land the farmers are already taking care of: managed forests, conservation land, protecting the waterways that go through the land (and not farming right up to the str eam bank because DEC and EPA won’t let you do that) and normal farming practices would not do that. This survey is going to point out a lot of the conservation land, not just farm land. When you go through and survey the farmers about what they own, what they are renting, and what they rent (For example: a 25 acre field that is being used attached to 75 acres that are managed forest). There is more privately owned forest on D. Barton’s farm and the hills behind him than there is state forest. Even his land that is open, is managed in the sense that he keeps it mowed down. A lot of land that used to be open for ag is now forest which has affected the bird population. There used to be lots of pheasants in this area but as the small grain crops decreased, the pheasants disappeared and now the turkeys have moved in. Supr. Sumner asked what the response rate to the surveys is? Ms. Teeter replied that the response is very good. The farmers tend to share information when they know what it is being used for or when they know that their names are not necessarily being attached to the information. She recommended that we make sure that the survey we are sending out is exactly what we want it to include. Don’t rush into it; maybe ask a few other farmers to do the survey to see what might be missing. E. Carpenter asked if Ms. Teeter can review it? Yes, she will be happy to look it over. We might think the questions are very clear but she might not understand what is being asked. K. LaMotte pointed out the 3 questionnaires already on the table and asked if there were any questions missing from them that she suggested? Ms. Teeter said that they were all looking for different things but that they got the information that they wanted. She pointed out that they can pull a lot of information from Assessment. E. Carpenter stated that one thing that he thinks we have more of than Lansing, are the smaller farms. Those that don’t, in our minds, qualify as open space. He is renting from 3 people that he rents from that don’t have Ag Assessment. Ms. Teeter said that is where a meeting of the farmers would be helpful. As comprehensive an invitation as you can get out to people and feed them and have very specific questions including maps, have them fill out forms, ask the questions. Supr. Sumner asked if that was something they should get working on right away, the list of people we think should be included in the survey? Ms. Teeter said yes, and we should be able to get the information from assessment that she can get. She then suggested that we have 2 surveys with overlapping questions - survey for the land owners and a survey for farmers. Ms. Teeter pointed out that we have a lot of land renters in the Town and maybe a town wide meeting with the farmers and then follow up with a wr itten survey for those that could not make it. C. Schutt noted that when looking at all three surveys, most of the questions that they asked on their list from last month are already there. Supr. Sumner said that she has heard comments from time to time about conflicts or cooperation with recreation users. Is there any sense of trying to include any questions about that on the survey? Ms. Teeter said that recreation is part of the #1 problem that farmers talk about. E. Carpenter stated that we don’t hav e a problem with organized recreation. It’s the neighbor kids with the 4-wheeler, kids that are riding through the crop fields. “They” always have an excuse, I asked the neighbor, I talked to the owner, I always ride here, etc. C. Anderson asked what other question would you ask in terms of recreation? Page 7 of 8 Supr. Sumner – regarding trails that go through the land or the current recreation uses that are in place…. D. Barton has an agreement with the snowmobile riders. It was a survival thing on his part because they were going to do it anyway. Now he has some control because he can determine where they ride and they have been respectful and helpful at times. Supr. Sumner recommended one or two questions like: do you allow recreation on your land and how is that going for you? Ms. Teeter said to make sure farmers have a place to list their concerns on the survey. Another thing that this plan can do is help define or target where you might want PDR to go. The county has an ag resource focus area that does not coincide with the Town thinks is important, which brings it back to the fact that if the Town has their own Ag and Farmland Protection plan then we don’t need to go to the County for approval. K. LaMotte asked if the money was coming back for the Purchase of D evelopment Rights? Ms. Teeter said it is coming back but they don’t know when. Supr. Sumner said that we are almost finished with our second PDR and have a grant for the 3rd one. Ms. Teeter pointed out that we have a good base in this Town already and if we can eliminate the County from the process, it makes things go faster. Ms. Teeter left the meeting at this point. E. Carpenter brought the conversation back to t he questionnaire. C. Anderson suggested just adding to the list. Recreation – walking trails, cross country skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, hunting – could be added. D. Barton said he is nervous about putting that into a plan because then you could run into the problem of people taking advantage. E. Carpenter said the question would be more along the lines of do you have someone doing this on your property currently? Do you allow it on your property, do you make money on it, do you rent your land? E. Carpenter said that he likes the scale survey on the back of the land owner survey. It could be adapted the other way and he thinks it should be on both surveys. Supr. Sumner reminded the Committee that Ms. Teeter had suggested two versions - one for landowners and one for farmers. C. Anderson suggested adding a question about PDRs and would the farmer be interested in the future. Supr. Sumner questioned whether people know enough about what a PDR is to have an opinion. The consensus of the group was that the older farmers will but the younger folks might not have thought much about it yet. If we give them the question, that in 20 years would you be interested? E. Carpenter pointed out that a landowner that is not a farmer may wish to consider PDRs too. K. LaMotte said that when the PDRs were first introduced, Cornell put on a couple programs about it and at that time they seem pretty particular about what they wanted out of it. Supr. Sumner suggested maybe a question regarding the cost of land. Do the farmers have land or how accessible is agricultural farm land? K. LaMotte suggested that would be worked out by supply and demand. D. Barton said that one of the issues is the new assessments which don’t compare apples to oranges, sub marginal land compared to quality land. That makes it hard to rent or sell. And no one has sold any land that is comparable. Supr. Sumner stated that she finds it interesting that other kinds of commercial properties are assessed on income potential rather than the market value. Wouldn’t that be better? C. Anderson suggested changing the question to “do you expect to buy more land” or “do you need more land” instead of “are you expecting to sell your land” Page 8 of 8 E. Carpenter asked K. LaMotte, C. Anderson and C. Schutt if they would work together to consolidate a questionnaire? They agreed to work out a schedule to meet. Supr. Sumner suggested that the rate of returned information will be greater during the winter months when farmers are not so busy. C. Anderson said that it will also allow the farmer’s committee to go door to door if necessary. D. Barton reminded everyone that Ms. Teeter had gone to the farmers’ homes to get information and that since she is not the farmer next door, she appears as less of a threat. C. Anderson pointed out that the Planning Department is going to want to be part of the plan. S. Stelick encouraged the Committee to have it whatever way you want it, don’t wait for the Planning Department to help or have pre-conceptions. Make the questionnaire reflective of the grant request. The September 11th meeting will continue the discussion regarding the questionnaire and the grant. In October, Indian Milk and Honey has asked to visit with the Committee. There being no further business, D. Barton moved to adjourn at 9:16 and J. Osmeloski seconded the motion. Respectfully Submitted, Erin A. Bieber Deputy Town Clerk