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Editorial: Feedlot zoning/A new assault on local rights

February 12, 2005

The No. 1 step Minnesota should undertake to support its livestock industries, according to the governor's task force on animal agriculture, is to rein in the use of local zoning rules to control where feedlots can be built or expanded. From that, some might conclude that zoning fights are the No. 1 problem facing animal agriculture in Minnesota -- or, at least, the No. 1 problem that could be fixed with state resources. The first conclusion would be silly; the second is doubtful at best.

There's no question that dairy farmers, especially, are in deep trouble in this state. The Minnesota herd is shrinking, and so is the number of producers, as warm weather and wide-open spaces draw milk production to California, western Idaho and New Mexico.

The response running through the task force report is that the remaining producers -- and not only in dairy, but also in beef, pork and poultry -- should keep expanding and economizing. The state, meanwhile, should focus on removing such obstacles as abusive zoning by obstructionist township boards.

Producer associations, with support from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, have been making this point for enough years that you'd expect them to have assembled clear evidence that it's a big problem. Instead they offer a handful of anecdotes, often involving very large feedlots and local objections that, in fact, seem plausible. Or they prepare maps showing what might happen if, say, all of Stearns County were to adopt the setback rules of a township over in Lincoln County. Indeed, the ag department says it knows of only a dozen townships across Minnesota whose livestock-related ordinances are considered too restrictive.

There is one potentially problematical quirk in the practice of township zoning: Until a controversial project comes along, most townships don't bother to prepare a zoning ordinance, or to update an obsolete one. Those are expensive and time-consuming tasks for low-budget, volunteer boards that, until the rise of industrial-scale livestock operations, were usually content to let the counties handle land-use matters. So it's theoretically possible for a well-meaning farmer to embark on a reasonable project and find the rules changing in the middle of the game -- especially if he doesn't sound out the board in advance.

The task force proposes to prevent this by changing state law to exempt farmers from any local zoning requirement adopted after their project applications. The practical effect is to make each board invest perhaps $10,000 or more in a
zoning plan it may never need, or else surrender its right to do any effective zoning at all.

After this handcuffing, the task force recommends further harassment: requirements that the boards notify the state of any changes in their livestock-related ordinances, report to their communities on the local economic impact of such changes, and contribute to "templates" of federal, state, county and township regulations for applicants' one-stop-shopping convenience.

Such changes seem unlikely to benefit the vast majority of projects, where a local farmer works things out with a township board composed of like-minded neighbors, all invested in the success of the local economy. In such cases, the task force rules would add only extra costs.

The clear beneficiaries would be the big operators and/or outsiders who can't count on local support and would rather not be bothered with having to earn it. The regulatory "uniformity" and "predictability" the task force praises would amount to a virtual guarantee that operators could build any livestock project anywhere, as long as they complied with state environmental standards and a county land-use plan.

Such an attack on local decisionmaking would be unthinkable if proposed in behalf of, say, lumber mills or liquor retailers, trucking terminals or townhome builders. Even in a state where agriculture always gets to play by special rules, this is a breathtaking affront to communities' right to decide their futures -- especially when the problem it purports to solve, among all those facing Minnesota livestock operators, seems quite small indeed.

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