Santa Barbara County to Allow Camping, Special Events on Some Ag Land

Board of Supervisors Approves New Agriculture Enterprise Ordinance

By Jean Yamamura Wed Dec 11, 2024 | 04:14pm

Making a living from the land has always been a line of work that carries a certain risk, but agriculture is the county’s number-one industry as well as a beloved part of the Santa Barbara landscape. Preservation is the goal of the county’s new Agriculture Enterprise Ordinance, which gives many in the rural regions more business bootstraps to pull up, but it also has a “tremendous potential for conflict,” Supervisor Joan Hartmann observed on Tuesday morning.

The ordinance affects properties between 40 and 320 acres zoned AG-II, and Hartmann’s District 3 contains many large-acre residential lots bordered by a landscape of crops or cattle in the Santa Ynez Valley. (For reference, Santa Barbara High School covers 40 acres.) Residents commented on the ability of light and noise to carry across open land, and they pointed to Buttonwood Vineyard on Alamo Pintado Road as a harbinger of farmstays to come. Buttonwood was purchased by TMC Hospitality, proprietor of Santa Barbara’s Drift Hotel in the former Scientology building on State Street, and last year it proposed 60 cottages on the 106-acre property.

There could be some real problems of compatibility, Hartmann agreed. “Some look at the Santa Ynez Valley from the outside and see dollar signs. What we’re trying to do is assist agriculture with the means to stabilize their income.”

Supervisor Joan Hartmann voted with a unanimous Board of Supervisors to pass the Agriculture Enterprise Ordinance, after persistently moderating its effects amid farmland. | County of Santa Barbara

That stability is by no means guaranteed. Last year’s storms wiped out $56 million worth of the strawberry crop. The year before, $9 million less was made in wine grapes compared to the previous year. Thankfully, bees and beehives have been making a comeback, as have livestock, cut flowers, and field and seed crops, according to county agricultural commission updates.

Tuesday’s was the second session for the supervisors, who’d asked for a number of changes to the ordinance on November 5. Those were neatly laid out by planning staff, and the supes made compromises and passed the ordinance unanimously by mid-afternoon this Tuesday.

Rural camping, glamping, and special events of all kinds, as well as agricultural product prep, farm stands, firewood, and composting — all on a small scale — are now sanctioned in rural unincorporated areas zoned AG-II (40-320 acres), and food service at wineries zoned AG-I (under 40 acres) and AG-II. All are to be incidental or secondary to the main activity of agriculture at each property.

Susan Belloni, a member of Women’s Environmental Watch in the Santa Ynez Valley, outlined for the supervisors where AG-II and AG-1 properties meet and could develop issues from newly available uses in the Agriculture Enterprise Ordinance. | Credit: Susan Belloni

Composting and Campsites

Composting and campsites proved to be the big stumbling blocks in getting the ordinance to the finish line. On the one hand, Supervisor Bob Nelson, who represents a majority of the salad-bowl crop-growing areas, said the fear of contamination from compost was real. One episode of E. coli contamination had affected the market worldwide: “It wasn’t intentional. It was birds,” Nelson said, but growers were asking for composting as a “supplementary agricultural use” to be eliminated from the ordinance.

Composting aids agriculture, Hartmann argued. Farmers spread it a quarter-inch thick to hold the water in and grow better forage. “We don’t have enough compost,” said Hartmann, considering the amount of green waste produced on farms. At around three football fields in length, the 1,000-foot setback is extreme, she said.

As the debate turned to alternatives and state compost regulations, some important details emerged. The issue was really about leafy greens because the largest shipper in the country refused to take vegetables that had been grown within 1,320 feet of composting, Nelson explained. It’s not worth the risk, he said.

“The rule is 1,300 feet to compost? This [ordinance] is 1,000 feet from the property line to compost,” observed Supervisor Das Williams. Modifying the buffer to be from crop to compost was sufficient to win Nelson’s okay. (It’s 400 feet for orchards and vineyards.)

Steve Lavagnino, supervisor for the Santa Maria area and chair of the board, knew he had three votes to approve the ordinance at the end of the second hour. But as one of those votes was not Hartmann’s, whose District 3 is most affected by the ordinance — “Your zoning is built to create conflict,” he commented — Lavagnino was reluctant to call for a vote. Instead, the supervisors took a break to give staff a chance to sort through the camping numbers once again.

When they returned, the issues put up on the screen charted the complexities that county staff, the Planning Commission, and participating residents have considered over the past two years as they gestated the Ag Enterprise rules. Among them were the type of permit for each project — some require public notice of a pending project, some give the ability to appeal. Because the ordinance proposes so many new uses, it will be reviewed after implementation to gauge complaints and any permit violations or revocations. One penalty is that a permit, once revoked, has a 12-month hold before the user may reapply.

In the case of camping, the land affected is zoned AG-II, or anything between 40 and 320 acres in size. A camping development can either be low-impact or one of the three flavors of small-scale. The property’s total acreage determines the number of campsites allowed. At a maximum 2.5 “guests” per campsite, visitation numbers could get big.

As staff explained during the hearing, a permit requirement gives planners the ability to learn of projects, track them, and discuss issues like sewage with the applicants, and inform them of other departments, like Fire and Environmental Health Services, with which they must consult.

Chart of permit types in the new ordinance and public notice, hearing, and appealability. CDP is for Coastal Zone properties. | County of Santa Barbara

Hartmann held her ground on the number of campsites allowed, trimming them back from the proposal. Adding new uses was easier than clawing one back, and enforcement was always an issue, she noted. The end result:

• Low impact (or tent) camping: up to nine campsites, no landowner-provided accommodations, porta-potties recommended, requires zoning clearance permit (not noticed, no public hearing, not appealable)

• Small scale not touching AG-I or residential zones: 40-100 acres allows up to 15 campsites; 100-200 ac., up to 20 sites; 200-320 ac., up to 30 sites; one additional campsite for every 200 acres more than 320; maximum 60 sites (6,320+ ac.); zoning clearance permit

• Small scale touching AG-I or residential: 100-200 ac., up to 15 sites; 200-320 ac., up to 20 sites; no amplified sound; land-use permit required (noticed, no public hearing, appealable)

• Small-scale touching AG-I or residential: 40-100 ac., up to 15 sites; any site surrounded by AG-I; requires minor conditional-use permit (noticed, appealable).

For small-scale campsites, landowners may provide up to 70 percent of the accommodations, expected to be trailers, yurts, or the like — and these will be subject to the county bed tax. Any camping size not listed is likely to require a full conditional use permit, which is both lengthy and expensive.

Lighting was not addressed in the ordinance, despite some eloquent requests by the public to ban lights and amplified sound. However, amplified sound is to stop by 9 p.m. across all types of events and farm stays. Special events are allowed to remain onsite until 11 p.m. for cleanup.

The ordinance contains a number of other opportunities — for instance, six farm-stay rooms are allowed with zoning clearance; a larger number requires a minor conditional-use permit. It’ll take a couple days to incorporate all the changes, said County Planning Deputy Director Alex Tuttle, but interested parties will soon be able to peruse the completed ordinance, which was spearheaded by long-range planner Julie Harris.

As for the public benefits from visiting a farm, Hartmann recalled meeting residents who hadn’t known that strawberries had a season. And the ordinance had grown far beyond the low-impact camping they’d started with. “Certain agents are eager to promote land sales, clients, to something much bigger. Hotels really should be in the cities. We don’t want hotels dispersed across agricultural lands,” Hartmann advised.

“We want to protect agriculture and help people learn about it, appreciate it, and want to protect it, too.”