The idea of urban agriculture incentive zones has begun to spread within California. On February 10, both the City of Sacramento and Santa Clara County took official steps toward creating zones that would allow landowners to receive a property tax reduction in exchange for committing their land to urban gardening or farming for at least five years.
The , introduced by Supervisors Ken Yeager and Mike Wasserman, focuses on establishing an urban agriculture incentive zone in the unincorporated areas of the county. , there are 91 parcels that would be eligible for the tax incentive based on their size and existing structures.
ϴsupports this proposal and sees it as a first step toward using this new policy tool to incentivize urban farming and gardening in the county. As , the City of San Jose is home to more than 500 vacant parcels, far more than the number in the unincorporated part of the county. For this reason, ϴhas called on Santa Clara County to draft its ordinance with a process that allows it to easily adopt additional urban agriculture incentive zones that may be proposed by city councils within the county. At its February 10 meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to direct county staff to draft an ordinance that would create an incentive zone in the county.
In contrast to Santa Clara County, the first step in the process for Sacramento has been at the City Council. Inspired to action by a , the Law and Legislation Committee voted to send the proposal for consideration by the full Council in March. Like San Francisco, . The committee also directed city staff to begin discussions with county staff regarding the county Board of Supervisors’ approval of the incentive zone.
After the first application cycle in San Francisco, the . With Santa Clara County and Sacramento moving ahead (and ), we could soon see more urban agriculture projects across the state benefiting from the law before the end of 2015.
Read San Francisco’s first urban agriculture incentive zone contract >>