The city’s Plan Commission is meeting tonight to discuss a plan to protect urban farmland within the city of Madison. It’s part of a final report from the city’s Task Force on Farmland Preservation to bring fresh produce closer to urban areas.
The task force was created last fall to study the relationship between the city’s need for development and urban farming. They were tasked with creating a report to help guide the city to balance those two conflicting needs, and to support local food production.
They have now compiled a final report with 47 recommendations to help the city preserve its urban farmland. Those recommendations include partnering with local organizations to allow for multiple growers on a single site, creating a new Food Policy Director for the city of Madison, and finding ways to incentivize agricultural development.
Currently, the city owns around 200 acres of farmland that can be leased out to farmers and community agriculturalists. But according to Mark Voss, an urban farmer, real estate developer, and citizen member of the task force, the process of actually leasing out that land is complex, and is often inaccessible for potential farmers.
But when it works, Voss says, it can bring people closer to their food, and create a healthier community for everyone.
Voss points to Troy Farm, an urban farm on the city’s north side, as a positive example of how agriculture can exist within the city’s limits.
“That is kind of the gold standard in how agriculture and housing can coexist together,” Voss says, “where agriculture, working gardens, can be seen as an anchor amenity for well-being, and resilience, and allowing people to have an experience with where their food comes from, whether they grow it themselves or as a farmer. I really see that as something that we want to support here in Madison.”
The final report only provides recommendations to city leaders on how to move forward with protecting the city’s farmland. In order for the recommendations made in the report to become city statute, the council would need to pass separate resolutions for each specific recommendation.
District 13 Alder Tag Evers, who sits on the task force, says that by taking urban agriculture seriously, the city can look for projects that mix housing with agricultural space.
“One of the key recommendations is that we no longer look at urban agriculture as a zero sum game, taking land away from the important consideration of more housing,” Alder Evers says. “The concept of agri-communities means that we can do both, we can see development of affordable housing with urban agriculture, and that’s starting to take root.”
Not everyone is on board with the report. Bill Connors is the Executive Director of Smart Growth Greater Madison, a group of local real estate developers. He says that, while he appreciates most of what the report has to offer, parts of it also raise concerns. He said one section, which calls for land that is annexed by the city of Madison to be evaluated for urban agricultural development, could create unneeded controversy.
“Our concern about this is the vagueness of it,” Connors says. “In what procedural context is that going to occur? If it’s going to occur while putting together a neighborhood development plan, that’s fine, that makes total sense. But this doesn’t say anything about what context that’s going to take place.”
Connors says that this recommendation could be weaponized by someone opposed to a new development in order to block or slow down the proposed development project.
He also said that the city needs to put its priority on building more housing, and leave farmland development to other areas of Dane County.
“The development is going to happen,” Connors says. “People are moving here and the development is going to happen, so it’s just a question of where the development is going to happen. If you set aside large amounts of land within city boundaries and preserve it for agriculture, that just means more land out further in the county that was going to be agriculture used is now going to be developed. That isn’t very good for the environment. The farther away you push residential development away from the urban core, the more greenhouse gasses people generate in their day-to-day lives.”
The report is currently being discussed by the city’s Plan Commission, whose meeting began at 5:30. It is slated to go before the full Common Council for their approval on June 6.
Photo courtesy: Dylan de Jonge / UNSPLASH
