Drafter
Clerk 07/16/2009
Title
AN ORDINANCE authorizing the use of the King County Agricultural Conservation Easement: Deed and Agreement Relating to Development Rights by the farmland preservation program.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Ordinance 4341, passed by the county council on June 18, 1979, called for an election to submit to the voters Proposition One: Farm and Open Space Bonds. The voters approved the proposition and authorized the issuance of $50,000,000 in bonds to acquire development rights on selected farmlands throughout King County. These and other acquisitions of farmland development rights have been implemented under King County's farmland preservation program ("FPP").
2. In the early 1980s, in the course of acquiring the development rights called for through Ordinance 4341, the council passed a series of additional ordinances authorizing the acquisition of development rights on specific farmlands and approving a form of conveyance entitled Deed of and Agreement Relating to Development Rights (" the deed and agreement"), which granted development rights to King County and which placed on subject properties restrictive covenants that specified allowable and prohibited uses and activities on the properties.
3. Since the early 1980s, one amendment to the deed and agreement has been authorized by the council. Ordinance 15221 authorized additional covenants in the revised deed and agreement required by a federal funding source grantee, which was the federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, which provided grant funds to King County for additional purchases of farmland development rights.
4. From the time the FPP was established, agriculture in the county has undergone significant changes. Regional socioeconomic factors, such as increased land prices and costs of living, challenges in securing and appropriately providing for required labor, potentially conflicting land uses practices, and increased demand for water and water...

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