Ag protection ordinance added, new board set

Meeting a state requirement to add an agriculture protection area (APA) section to the county’s zoning code, along with naming a committee to oversee it, the Washington County Commissioners beat the Jan. 1, 2025, deadline by 16 days.

 After holding a required public hearing on Monday afternoon, Dec. 16, the three county commissioners unanimously approved the addition of the 20th chapter to the Washington County zoning title.

 The board had previously named Cambridge area rancher Royce Schwenkfelder, Weiser Flat farmer Chris Leverenz, and Cove Road rancher Jase Roberts to the new APA committee during the Nov. 25, regular weekly commission meeting. The three met with the commissioners last week just ahead of the hearing’s scheduled time on the agenda.

 The first to submit his interest in being appointed to the new committee in mid-October, Schwenkfelder last week said he believes the APA legislation brings more questions than answers, describing the 2024 mandate as a “feel good thing.”

 “So, you know none of us are just killing it in agriculture,” Schwenkfelder said. “It’s up and down, and every year is boom or bust, and coupled with this, the legislature stayed completely away from any incentive last year.”

 He referenced existing conservation easement programs that keep participating agricultural acreages perpetually designated as such. With development rights no longer available on those properties, their ongoing values are limited to whatever current ag values might be.

 Perpetuity is the difference between those existing programs and Idaho’s APA, which runs for 20 years, with landowners having the option to withdraw from the program after 10 years.

 Along with questioning the state’s limitations in Idaho’s legislation and a lack of definition of “large” CAFOs and solar as disqualifying properties for ag protected status, Schwenkfelder said he believes the committee has more work ahead of them in defining “agricultural uses” in the new chapter.

 “They have to be over five acres and have to have an agricultural use,” he described. “Well, we don’t have any thresholds dictated in this thing. An agricultural use for what, a garden? Three horses?”

 Describing issues the county’s planning and zoning commission has seen, Schwenkfelder described an example of someone buying an agriculturally zoned property and putting up a hay barn.

 “But, now we’re living in a hay barn,” he said. “Is that an ag use? Then, it’s up to this board to say it is or it isn’t.”

 Leverenz didn’t offer any comments before or during the public hearing, and Roberts submitted comments during the hearing in favor of the ordinance. 

 Saying she neither opposes nor favors the ordinance, Deer Creek area resident Jeri Soulier said she is curious about where the “incentive” would come from.

 “That obviously has to come from somebody, so I’m asking if it’s going to come from county taxpayers, from the state, from the federal government, to pay landowners to sign up for the APA?” Soulier asked. “Any idea?”

 That is the looming question over the legislation going into the upcoming 2025 Idaho legislative session.

 Washington County Farm Bureau President Tristan Winegar told the board he expects Idaho Farm Bureau’s state lobby to be heard in committee within the first couple of weeks of January, after the start of the session.

 “I have meetings with our governmental affairs team in Boise and the committees it will be going through, like in the first week in January, maybe the second week, so we’re trying to get that done,” Winegar said.

 Winegar didn’t give any hints on what the Farm Bureau might be pushing for, whether a new state tax or fee, a slice out of existing tax revenues, or adding a line to the donations section on Idaho’s individual income tax return form.

 See the full ordinance in the legal section on page 13 of today’s issue of the Weiser Signal American.