Ring Lane acreage now protected from development

When Jens Peder Nielsen came to La Conner from Iowa with the Hulburt family early in the 20th century, land was on his mind.

Soon J. P. Nelson, as he began calling himself, was using earnings from his job with the Hulburts to buy small parcels as they became available.

Many small parcels became substantial holdings for the Danish farmer. Through the Skagit County Farmland Legacy program, J.P.’s niece Nancy Dunton recently protected 170 acres of his prime farmland from development.

“Nobody is going to build on this land EVER,” said Dunton, a La Conner native who graduated from high school there in the 1960s. “That is my bottom line.”

Counting Dunton’s acreage, 13,827 acres of Skagit farmland have been protected since 1996. That is some 16% of the county’s 89,000 acres zoned Agricultural Natural Resource Land, said Sarah Stoner, agricultural lands coordinator for Skagit County Public Works. The county is on track to have 30% protected by 2046.

The county-funded Farmland Legacy Program compensates agricultural landowners for development rights that, under current zoning, would allow one single family home per 40 acres. Then it places perpetual conservation easements on those lands. Landowners retain ownership and continue to farm, while the easement limits future uses to agriculture.

Dunton is the most recent addition to the roster of La Conner-area families who have participated in the Farmland Legacy Program. Others include the Mesman, Hart, Thulen, Hedlin, Fohn, Youngquist and Johnson families.

Ag land peppered with residential houses results in smaller and smaller chunks of open space that make it harder to farm efficiently, Stoner points out.

And when a county loses a critical mass of farmland, it also loses a whole ecology of businesses that support agriculture.

“Then,” said Stoner, “it is like a rapid downhill fall where all of a sudden farmers can’t buy fertilizer or tractor parts (locally) anymore and farming is just too hard.

“Funding for development rights that helps keep agriculture here in Skagit is a win-win situation.”

Of the $23 million paid to extinguish development rights over the past 25 years, $13.5 million came from the Skagit County Conservation Futures Tax, paid for by a Washington state levy that assesses .0625 per $1,000 valuation of a county property. Skagit County is one of only 13 counties that take advantage of this fund.

The other $9.5 million came from local and federal grants and nonprofit contributions from groups like Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland.

“Where we identify land we see at risk, we approach donors for dollars to retire development rights and stretch county money further,” said SPF Executive Director Allen Rozema.

The county program is open to any farm landowner who wants to participate. SPF focuses on farmland along I-5 from Conway to Cook Road, and Highway 20 from Burlington to the Swinomish Channel. Development pressure is stronger close to freeway interchanges and highways and where utility infrastructure is in place.

SPF also keeps an eye out for infrastructure improvements that could intensify development over time.

“If people are talking about beefing up 100-year flood protection in a particular area, then let’s get easements in place so the flood protection doesn’t induce sprawl,” Rozema said.

In high-risk areas, SPF rings the doorbells of specific farmers to let them know about the program and urge them to apply. When the answer is yes, SPF raises private money to help facilitate the sale and stretch county dollars.

SPF is leading the effort to keep fully contained communities (FCCs) out of the valley. Saving the county one farm parcel at a time might help, said Rozema, if it becomes possible to place conservation easements on farmland that is zoned Rural Reserve/Rural Resources.

“Unless FCCs will be built on prime farmland, the current program and our priority areas wouldn’t necessarily prevent FCCs going in,” he said. “But we could anticipate where they might go and reach out to those landowners now.”

Dunton remembers her dad predicting, when she was a child, that one day there would be houses from La Conner clear out to their home on Ring Lane.

That hasn’t come true. And Dunton’s new conservation easement means her land – and all farmland with easements – will be protected no matter what happens to zoning regulations in the Skagit Valley.

“I don’t ever want this land to be cut up,” said Dunton. “My kids know how I feel. Keep your land. Don’t let people build on it. We need to save our farmland.”