Please ask legislators to stop HB 4153

Please ask legislators to stop HB 4153. This bill would require counties to permit a host of commercial uses on Exclusive Farm Use land, destroying what makes Oregon Oregon.

Let’s send 100 testimonies from Hood River!

At some point on Monday, February 2, you will be able to click the “Submit Testimony” tab at HB 4153. You can write from the heart, or use one of the paragraphs below. The quantity of testimony is crucial –it’s easy to send a paragraph and add a tick mark in the OPPOSE column. Testimony must be submitted before 1:00 pm on Friday, February 6.

Please email info@thrivehoodriver.org if you have questions or want information on how to testify during the hearing on Wednesday, February 4.

*SAMPLE TESTIMONY — PICK ANY PARAGRAPH AND EDIT AS YOU LIKE *

The agenda for this meeting says that HB 4153 “Allows counties to approve farm stores”. That is a deceit. This bill does not “allow”, it FORCES. It inserts retail stores, events, amusement parks, and commercial kitchens into ORS 215.283(1), where counties MUST permit them. This is government overreach at its worst. The state should not force this laundry list of non-farm uses on land zoned for Exclusive Farm Use without regard to the character, priorities, or needs of individual counties.

The state should not force counties to permit non-farm uses that do not fit their particular priorities and types of agriculture. Currently, for example, counties may – but are not required to – allow agri-tourism and other commercial events on Exclusive Farm Use land. Hood River County has chosen to allow up to 18 days of agri-tourism events, but not the larger number available in statute, and no commercial events. This is the county’s right and choice under current law. It is the balance between tourism and farm land protection that fits Hood River. That local prerogative will be taken away by this bill. HB 4153 would force all counties to allow unlimited commercial activities and entertainment venues under the guise of a “farm store”.  Please do not do that to Hood River.

HB 4153 is designed to eviscerate exclusive farm use zoning and destroy the land use system that makes Oregon special. I don’t want Oregon to be Florida or Texas. There are innumerable entertainment and retail conglomerates just waiting for a bill like this in order to buy up our farm land and plaster it with concert venues, commercial events, and food service outlets. Don’t be fooled; the bill has so many loopholes that none of these operations need have any real basis in local farming. This is a terrible bill and the wrong path for Oregon.

HB 4153 is unfair to small businesses. Restaurants, brew pubs and cafes in rural centers pay commercial prices for land, pay commercial property taxes, and do not have acres of land to convert from farm use to lawns for customers. Small rural business and commercial districts die when farm land becomes de facto commercial land. In Hood River County, almost all EFU zoned parcels have a view of some sort. With this bill, our farm land would metastasize into high-traffic commercial businesses with which those in the appropriate zones cannot compete. That kind of sprawl is the opposite of everything that Oregon’s land use system was designed for.

HB 4153 goes light years beyond anything currently permitted in the Exclusive Farm Use zone. It would require counties to permit:

• “Farm stores” selling anything, so long as they also offer an undefined amount of farm products. A Harley Davidson store with a basket of apples on the counter?
• Any activity that promotes visitors and sales. A Harely Davidson motorbike rally?
• Commercial and seasonal events of any kind. A summer concert series next door to you? A Google corporate retreat?
• Classes, play structures and amusement parks, animal exhibits, arenas and other open structures. Fill in the blanks.
• Meal service that “educates the public”, so long as some undefined portion was grown in Oregon or an adjacent county. Ditto.

This bill makes a mockery of the exclusive farm use zone and Oregon’s tradition of protecting agricultural land. Please do not allow it move forward.

HB 4153 is unfair to rural residential landowners. We have a reasonable expectation that adjoining Exclusive Farm Use zoned land will be used for farming, not for retail stores, commercial kitchens, restaurants, concerts, amusement parks, zoos, and entertainment venues. We expect and accept the necessary noise and inconvenience that comes with being part of a farming community. But rural residential landowners – and our farming neighbors – should not be forced to deal with non-farm uses that belong in commercial and manufacturing zones. Please kill this bill.

This bill is unfair to farmers who use farm stands to market their own crops. Some years ago, for example, one farm stand on Highway 35 in Hood River County put in a soft-serve ice cream machine. Within months, half a dozen other stands lining the road did the same in order to compete. Farmers selling only their crops cannot and should not have to make the investment required to compete with retail stores and entertainment venues.

This bill is tailor-made for one specific permit application currently under appeal in Hood River County. The legislative process should not be co-opted for the benefit of specific individuals.

HB 4153 gives privileges to “farm stores” that far exceed those given to other types of permits. A cider business, for example, can only sell retail items directly related to the cider it produces; sales of incidental items and services are capped at 25 percent of the income from sales of cider; and agri-tourism and commercial events are limited in several ways. All of these features ensure that a cidery is first and foremost a farm that grows apples and produces cider. This bill allows “farm stores” to sell any kind of retail items, removes any limit on the amount of those sales, and allows unlimited entertainment events. If this bill were passed, there would be an immediate push to restore parity for other types of permits, a race to the bottom in which farm land would no longer protected in any way.

The overreach in this bill would be devastating for farmers who are simply trying to farm. Land use law is complicated, and changes of this magnitude should not be rammed through the short session.

HB 4153 is unfixable. It uses dozens of terms that are not defined. It is internally contradictory. Conflicts with existing section of the statutes are unresolved. The constraints on nonfarm sales are illusory. The complexity and amount of judgment it requires of county planners makes it unenforceable. It will spawn decades of administrative nightmares and court cases. This is an unredeemable bill and should be stopped.