Public Hearing on Deregulation of Slaughterhouses
Permalink +Sat, Dec 01, 2012, 4:42 pm // Wendy Harris
The County Council is proceeding with a poorly thought-out deregulation that amends agricultural zoning to allow slaughterhouses and rendering plants. A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 7 P.M in the Council chambers.
Currently, the County Code specifically, affirmatively and repeatedly prohibits slaughterhouses in the Agriculture District. This was underscored in 2006 when the County Code was revised to accommodate on-farm processing of agricultural products. The regulatory burden for berry processing plants and other small accessory uses was reduced, while the prohibition against large, inappropriate processing operations, like slaughterhouses, was emphasized. Slaughterhouses were also restricted by requiring that agricultural processing remain subordinate to the primary agricultural use.
Council is now poised to throw this all away by deregulating the Agriculture District to accommodate a single applicant, Gabriel Claycamp. (If this name sounds familiar, perhaps it is because it has been in the paper numerous times with regard to health code violations and investor fraud.) Mr. Claycamp would like to construct a slaughterhouse in the Agricultural District, and since it is expressly prohibited, he has filed a rezone application to change this inconvenient restriction.
Council Member Barbara Brenner was a co-applicant on the rezone application, which means that Mr. Claycamp is not responsible for costs associated with amending the zoning code. Instead, you, dear reader, are responsible for costs. And given the many hours of work required by the planning staff and the numerous meetings by the Planning Commission and the County Council, this particular deregulation is not going to be cheap.
But do not put your wallets away just yet, because there could be additional costs associated with GMA compliance. The Growth Management Act emphasizes the importance of conserving agricultural land. Nonagricultural uses should be limited to lands with poor soils or otherwise not suitable for agricultural purposes. RCW 36.70A.177. In contradiction, the rezone will allow slaughterhouses and rendering plants under 15,000 sq. ft. to be constructed on agricultural land as an outright permitted use.
The real kicker is that none of this was necessary. While the council cites a need for slaughterhouses to support local farmers, they ignore the Rural Industrial and Manufacturing (RIM) District that allows for such uses. RIM zoning is available in areas close to the Agricultural District, such as Guide Meridian and Smith Road, Custer between I-5 and Portal, Loomis Trail Road and Birch Bay-Lynden Rd.
The RIM avoids fragmenting and reducing viable agricultural land, while imposing higher performance standards to protect public health and the environment from the increased impacts to air, soil and water quality. The rezone fails to address issues regulated in the RIM, such as parking and loading, drainage, pollution control and nuisance abatement, heat, light and glare, odor, dust, smoke, toxic gas and fumes and liquid pollutants. This makes the rezone proposal very clearly an environmental deregulation.
The Council is moving forward despite the strong concerns raised by the Northwest Clean Air Agency, several planning commissioners and many citizens. But the public is starting to fight back. Last month, Lori Erb of Acme submitted a petition in opposition to the rezone, signed by 61 citizens. (This document was not provided to me in response to a Public Record Act request until Ms. Erb contacted me, and I specifically requested this document.)
Most recently, Friends of Whatcom County reactivated to fight this ill-conceived deregulation, and is posting information for the public on its website at http://www.friendsofwhatcom.com. Please consider signing their petition opposing this deregulation, and speaking at the public hearing.
Comments (3)
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Tip Johnson // Sat, Dec 01, 2012, 8:42 pm
Seriously folks, this is the biggest potential land use disaster I’ve seen coming down the pike in a long time.
Virtually all residential property anywhere near AG (agricultural) land is likely to lose between 20 and 100 percent of its value. No facility even need be built. The possibility alone will hurt values. A facility nearby or upwind could wipe your value out completely. If you know anyone living near AG land in rural Whatcom County, they need to know that the County is determined to pass this measure. The only Council oppositions far has been from wanting to make it even less restrictive.
Everyone in the county ultimately has a stake because if the measure cuts property values as much as studies suggest, the County will be forced to raise levy rates in towns and cities to make up the shortfall.
The entire effort is misleading. They call it small-scale, but there is no effective limit on the size of facilities. In fact, through a bit of sleight of hand, by changing the meaning of one word, any number of facilities can be built. Where a simple reading would make you think that 15,000 square feet is the maximum size, the truth is more horrible. A 15,000 sq. ft. slaughter facility could be built next to a 15,000 sq. ft. cutting facility, next to a 15,000 sq. ft. packing facility and so on. Because they are accessory to any use in the AG zone, they become accessory to each other and thus permitted uses with no opportunity of appeal.
Because the measure requires half the animals to originate in Whatcom County, we could see acres and acres of pasture turn to feed lots and factory farms. One 15,000 sq. ft. facility could require more than 60 acres of factory chicken farm. This is a gigantic policy decision with implications the Council seems unable to understand.
There are many good reasons slaughterhouses and rendering plants have been moved into appropriate industrial zones. No one wants to live near the gruesome traffic, scenes and smells these facilities entail. This measure needs to get nipped in the bud.
John Lesow // Sun, Dec 02, 2012, 3:23 pm
I will not be able to attend the December 4 Council Meeting, but I urge concerned citizens to do so.
The concerns outlined by Wendy, Tip and others need to be addressed. The original PDS Staff proposal deserves reconsideration. After all, this is what we pay our County Staff to do.
The present proposal before Council should be voted down. I have urged the Council to do so on more than one occasion.
The fact that the proposal may violate the Growth Management Act does not seem to deter Council, some of whom have an annoying habit of disparaging the very law they are sworn to uphold. Slaughterhouses on Ag amounts to a free upzone from ag use to an industrial use for all landowners, whether they are fourth generation County farmers or offshore investors in numbered companies.
A bad precedent from your elected County Council and a Planning Commission that should know better.
Wendy Harris // Sun, Dec 02, 2012, 6:27 pm
John, I think that you are absolutely right. There are few logical justifications for this other than a free ag. land upzone, reduced environmental regulation and the cheaper cost of ag. land in terms of buying and starting a slaughterhouse or rendering facility. But as we have seen on many occasions, the ag. community does not always support what is in the long term interest of agricultural viability.
What pisses me off is that this is not a “free” upzone. The public, as usual, are paying for this, as we do all developer freebies that Council so liberally hands-out.
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