You asked what the State Plan of Conservation and Development’s (Plan of C&D) farmland preservation policies are and whether the plan regards them as optional.

SUMMARY

The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) prepares the five-year Plan of C&D, whose goals include increasing the state’s long-term capacity to produce food. Its two-fold strategy for accomplishing that goal is to (1) insure that the state has enough land to produce its own food and (2) increase farms’ economic and environmental viability. The plan’s locational guide map complements this strategy by designating areas that should be developed or conserved.

None of the plan’s goals are optional, but several factors limit the extent to which the state can achieve them. The plan attempts to balance the need to conserve raw, undeveloped land against the need to develop land for new houses, stores, factories and other uses. Its goals and strategies apply only to those sites where the state proposes to spend money on roads, bridges, sewers, office buildings, and other infrastructure. These investments can set the stage for new developments, but the final decision about whether to develop land rests mostly with individual landowners and local land use officials.

Consequently, OPM implements the plan by determining if a proposal to develop infrastructure at a specific site would be consistent with the plan. For example, it might determine that extending a sewer line into a relatively undeveloped area might be inconsistent with the plan since doing so would trigger more development. But it might determine otherwise if the proposal involved new sewers for a blighted city neighborhood where the plan favors new development. OPM must make these determinations for projects costing over $ 100,000 (CGS §16a-31).

FARMLAND PRESERVATION POLICIES

Protect Prime Agricultural Land

A goal of the Plan of C&D is to ensure that the state can still produce food well into the future, and the plan’s farmland policies aim to achieve that goal. One policy aims to protect enough prime agricultural land “to ensure a long-range food production capability within the state,” and the plan specifies five strategies to implement it.

Three strategies concern state actions. One recommends continued funding and support for the Purchase of Development Rights Program, under which the agriculture commissioner buys a farmer’s rights to develop his farmland for nonagricultural uses. The purchase price equals the land’s development value. Another strategy requires state agencies that issue development related permits to consider how their approval would affect farmland. Under this strategy, an agency would issue a permit that could cause farmland to be developed only if:

1. there is a demonstrated overriding need for the development,

2. there are no technically feasible or economically viable alternative sites, and

3. the conversion’s impact is weighed.

The third strategy recommends that the state recognize prime farmland in local and regional development plans and regulations and promote different land preservation techniques, including cluster development and the transfer of the development rights for these areas.

One strategy encourages towns to promote farming as an economic development strategy.

The last strategy generally calls for minimizing the development pressure new roads, sewers, and public facilities place on farmland (Conservation and Development Policies Plan 2005 – 2009, p. 67).

Economic and Environmental Vitality

The other policy seeks to “enhance the economic and environmental viability of farms,” and the plan outlines 11 strategies and recommendations to implement it. The strategies aim to preserve existing farms and increase the amount of land being farmed. Most of the preservation strategies focus on farm operations. They include:

• obtaining capital for starting or expanding farms,

• developing and marketing Connecticut-grown products,

• minimizing soil erosion and ground water contamination,

• making proper use of fertilizers and pesticides,

• adopting new technologies, and

• allowing farmlands to be used for hunting and fishing.

Another strategy seeks to insulate farms from development pressure by “opposing the introduction of infrastructure except to solve existing problems. ”

The plan recommends two strategies through which the state can add more farmland. One strategy is to develop a policy under which the state would rent out its land to farmers. The other is to identify state-owned lands with prime agricultural soils and consider whether they are viable for agriculture (pp. 67-69).

JR: ro