SANDPOINT — Farmers, residents, conservationists, and Bonner County officials met Tuesday to discuss the future of local farmland and new county responsibilities. 

The discussion centered on Idaho’s recently implemented Agricultural Protection Area Act, which aims to allow owners of working lands to voluntarily protect the zoning of their property for a fixed term. 

By Jan. 1, all counties across the state must establish an agricultural protection area ordinance to facilitate and review applications from landowners; the Oct. 22 discussion aimed to kickstart that process. 

“We have to make some big decisions,” Commissioner Asia Williams said at the discussion. “This is uncharted territory for our county.” 

The Agricultural Protection Area Act is designed to slow the rate at which working lands — including croplands, pasturelands, and working forests — are converted for other uses by locking in their zoning status for a 20-year term. In exchange, landowners get certain eminent domain protections. 

“It’s basically a conservation lease,” said David Anderson, Idaho program manager for the American Farmland Trust. 

Anderson answered questions from attendees and advocated for protection areas, describing the sale and transformation of farmland into low-density residential subdivisions as a major economic problem in fast-growing Idaho. 

According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, Idaho’s population expanded 6.8% between 2020 and 2023 — a rate outpacing the 1% national average for the same period. Legislators passed the law to give landowners a tool to control residential sprawl into working lands as houses are built to accommodate Idaho’s growth.

“Property taxes on ag and commercial properties are subsidizing our cost of services in our cities,” Anderson said. He encouraged people to resist the urge to sprawl into the country and “keep your houses where those services are, because that helps keep those costs lower.” 

Staff of Sandpoint nonprofit Kaniksu Land Trust were also present to describe conservation easements — another tool available to landowners aiming to control the future of their property. 

“Permanent protection of working agricultural lands is one of our key conservation priorities,” said conservation director Regan Plumb. “When we protect ag land, we’re also safeguarding clean water, we’re safeguarding places for animals.”  

If a landowner wants to limit development on their parcel in perpetuity, they can enter a permanent conservation easement with an organization like KLT, who will protectively hold the right indefinitely. 

By Jan. 1, Bonner County will assemble an agricultural protection area commission comprised of 3–5 residents involved in the agricultural industry that will review agricultural protection area applications. That commission will make a recommendation to the county commissioners, who will have final say on whether each application is approved. 

Bonner County is due for a new comprehensive plan: a document that will guide commissioners as they make decisions, including land use and zoning decisions, for years into the future. Two of the three county commissioner seats are up for grabs in the Nov. 5 election; the successful candidates will indisputably play roles in shaping that plan. 

“What the comprehensive plan is doing is setting the vision as we have communicated with the community,” Williams said. “That’s why who we elect matters for the vision.”