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April 16, 2009
Bill would increase farmworker housing
SACRAMENTO - Growers would have more opportunity to build more housing
for farmworkers on their property if a bill that passed its first
legislative review Wednesday becomes law.
Assembly Bill 494 would allow farmers to build housing on up to 10 acres
and would prevent local officials from blocking it with zoning rules.
"We want to provide safe, decent and affordable housing" for farmworkers,
said Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas.
Opponents complained that the bill would lead to excessively large
housing developments, possibly without proper sewage and water services,
and would unnecessarily override local land-use planning.
"The bill is not a modest approach," said John Gamper of the California
Farm Bureau.
AB 494 passed the Assembly Local Government Committee, which Caballero
chairs, and next goes to the Assembly Agriculture Committee.
The measure builds on a 1999 bill that allows growers to use up to 5
acres of land in the Williamson Act land preservation program for
farmworker housing.
The Williamson Act gives farmers a tax break to keep their crops in
farmland instead of selling out to developers, with the state
backfilling counties for lost property taxes.
Caballero said many farmworkers now are sleeping under trees and bridges
or in overcrowded attics and garages.
"There is a huge shortage of housing for farmworkers in rural areas
today," Caballero said.
In addition to increasing the size of tracts that could be converted to
farmworker housing by growers working with nonprofit groups or public
agencies, the measure also for the first time would prohibit cities or
counties from denying approval of such developments in or outside of
Williamson Act land.
The bill also would drop the existing requirement that the development
be within a city or contiguous to tracts already zoned for
development.Gamper said there isn't any evidence that the existing
five-acre limit was inhibiting farmworker housing development, and
Caballero said she is open to discussions on lot size and density.
She predicted that only a "handful of farmers" would use the provisions
in her bill but argued it is an important option.
"We were trying to get the most bang for our buck" in writing the bill,
Caballero said.
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