Making a pitch for preservation

March 31, 2007

The reliever who stopped Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak in 1978 made a pitch to Washington County last week to stop the urban sprawl that is putting farmers out of business.

I'm a member of the group - Washington County Citizens for Farmland & Natural Areas - that brought Gene Garber to the county last week to explain to citizens how Washington County could follow the lead of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.

Garber is chairman of the Lancaster County Agricultural Preservation Board in Lancaster County, where he grew up on a dairy farm. He returned to full-time farming with a brother and two sons there after a 20-year career in professional baseball.

He had a great record but will be famous forever for striking out Rose by throwing a slider for a strike and then his patented change-up for two more whiffs. Garber jumped for joy on the mound, and an irritated Rose complained to the media that he should have been fed an easier pitch so he could keep chasing Joe DiMaggio's 56-game record.

Garber has no regrets. Similarly, this strong-minded man has no doubts about the virtue and efficiency of combining smart growth with preserving farmlands.

Washington County voters will decide Tuesday whether to go the way of Lancaster County, famous for its preserved rural economy and companion tourism industry, or go the way of Waukesha County, where farming has mostly succumbed to commercial and residential development.

Garber travels the country to pitch the message that development and agriculture can co-exist if land-use plans are wisely drawn and then adhered to.

With good land-use planning, "the developer knows where he can develop, and the farmer knows where he can farm," he told a group of citizens and farmers in West Bend.

"You're not stopping growth. What you're doing is planning for your growth so it doesn't cost the community so much."

There was opposition when the concept of purchase of development rights, or PDRs, was introduced in Lancaster County in the mid-1980s because of a lack of understanding. But now, he said, "we've had no resistance from the development community." A developer serves with him on the preservation board.

His point of view is at odds with that demonstrated in the last week by the Wisconsin Realtors Association, which has mounted a campaign against the Washington County initiative. The association's argument has been that not enough information has been made available.

The citizens group of several hundred people has been attempting to meet that objection by going to dozens of meetings to answer questions and by widely disseminating the contents of a report from the county task force that framed out the PDR program.

The county chapter of the Realtors Association requested the state organization's help in opposition, but some local Realtors will vote "yes." John Schumann, a retired 50-year veteran of the business and charter member of the association, pointed out that if "you are in a beautiful area with farms, property values go up."

During the Working Lands Initiative at the state level in 2006, the Realtors Association signed off on a proposal for a statewide PDR program. Pennsylvania has done just that, Garber said, voting overwhelmingly to put up $100 million in 1989 for easements to keep farms in farming. Now, 40 of 69 counties have preservation programs.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle did not include PDR funds in his state budget, but some proponents think funds could be redirected toward that end.

To the argument that PDRs are a subsidy for farmers, Garber said he feels he is subsidizing developers because residential subdivisions cost more in public expenses than they bring in from property taxes.

For every dollar of property tax paid, he said, farms require 5 cents in services, retail takes 20 to 25 cents, industry needs 20 cents and subdivisions require $1.20 to $1.80.

Garber threw a hardball at the Realtors Association, saying, "You should embrace this. It will mean money in your pockets."

He acknowledged that selling a preservation program along with the right zoning and land-use plans is a complicated undertaking.

"You have to make decisions. You'll regret it if you don't."

John Torinus is chief executive officer of Serigraph Inc. of West Bend. Contact him at torcolumn@serigraph.com.