|
|
- Info
Impact fees for conversion of agricultural land: A resource- based development policy for California's cities and counties
| Author: |
Mudge, A.E. |
| Date: |
1992 |
| Periodical: |
Ecology Law Quarterly |
| Abstract: |
In early 1991, the United States Census Bureau revealed a fact, the full implications of which we do not yet know-most Americans now live in the suburbs. 163 However, it suggests that the suburbs and the urban fringe will continue to be the focus of urban development. Suburban communities such as Fairfield and Davis, California, are beginning to assert new control over disappearing agricultural land as they experience the serious economic and environmental impacts of its conversion. Nevertheless, the pressure to develop vacant land at the edge of metropolitan centers continues to be very strong. Recognizing that some conversion of agricultural land is essential to accommodate expanding populations, fee programs allow such conversion in exchange for permanent, or at least long term, protection of other prime land. Properly administered, such fee programs should be justifiable under the police power and/or implied powers in the Subdivision Map Act, and they should be able to withstand attack on both takings and illegal taxation grounds. As more communities place increasing value in raw land suitable for cultivation, farmland mitigation fees, like wetland mitigation requirements, should come to be viewed as an integral cost of development in urbanizing areas. |
|
