Wine, weed, water and us | Opinion

Sonoma County and its residents have turn into victims of too many cumulative impacts. Now we have backroads with too many wineries and valleys with not sufficient water. We’ve had tons of unlawful hashish for many years and at the moment are combating to determine the right way to make it authorized and develop it in the best locations. Farmers want legal professionals and land use consultants simply to plant a crop or plow a hillside. We’ve had a generation-long debate about preserving our rural character however we are able to’t even agree on what the time period precisely means.

We could also be at a crossroads as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. We at the moment are rebooting our hashish cultivation debate and subsequent week we’ll get a primary have a look at a proposed Vineyard Occasion Ordinance that has been seven years within the making. Local weather change, a drought and a yearlong wildfire season received’t make any of our selections simpler.

Nonetheless, Sonoma County stays a good looking, bountiful, wholesome, hopeful, welcoming, cherished, prideful, Eden-like place. Now we have 50 county parks, 76 miles of Pacific Ocean shoreline and 123,000 acres of open house and preserved lands. Sonoma County’s farmers yearly produce simply over $1 billion in grapes, fruits, greens, dairy, eggs, livestock, timber and different crops. Our cities, small cities and villages are low in crime, well-groomed and well-governed. Some cumulative impacts could also be extra acceptable than others, it appears.

Twenty years in the past, the county’s inhabitants was 396,592 and it’s now at 500,000. Over the identical 20 years the county’s winery acreage has gone from 31,000 to 59,000 acres. When the Russian River Wine Street was based in 1976 it had 9 vineyard members. At present there are 200. In complete, there are 464 vineyard tasting rooms within the county and 307 of them have occasion permits. Winegrapes signify nearly 70% of all agricultural manufacturing, but we nonetheless have sufficient acreage to assist different numerous and sustainable ag pursuits and farms.

At the same time as we preserve attempting to outline what we imply by rural character, we have now an extended historical past of defending it. The county adopted a Basic Plan in 1978 targeted on “city-centered” development to restrict sprawl and shield farms. Till 1989, solely crops and animals had been allowed in ag-zoned areas. The Basic Plan was amended that 12 months to permit “ag promotions” reminiscent of Farm Trails, pumpkin patches and Christmas tree farm guests and hayrides.

The newly proposed Vineyard Occasion Ordinance seeks to higher outline what’s, and isn’t, an “ag promotion.” The ordinance seeks to supply consistency and readability to the use allow course of, scale back impacts to surrounding areas, shield ag lands, and protect rural character. It units most hours of operations, parking, meals service, occasion coordination, visitors administration and setbacks for noise mitigation. Over the lengthy seven years of conferences and rural neighborhood committee periods, the boundaries to undesired cumulative impacts has not been settled.

In 2000, the Sierra Membership and others sought county voter approval for a Rural Heritage Initiative that will have tightly restricted rezoning of ag lands and limit non-farm actions. The measure failed when Farm Bureau members and different farmers complained they weren’t included within the unique drafting of the measure.

Right here we’re once more on the identical crossroad from 1978 when county planners wrote a Basic Plan to keep away from changing into one other San Jose and Silicon Valley. Since that point, voters have authorised and renewed City Progress Boundaries round all 9 included cities.

Working collectively, we’ve been doing a fairly good job of defending our farm lands, open house, wildlands, neighborhood identities and wholesome atmosphere. However we have now not prevented all of the cumulative impacts we might have preferred to. Including 100,000 new residents, hundreds of thousands of annual vacationers and tons of of recent wineries has boosted our financial system, however even that comes with prices. These embody busier nation roads, water provide worries, costly housing and irksome land-use guidelines. Is it attainable to de-cumulate one thing?