Did the standards work to separate farmers from non-farmers and protect agriculture from harm?
“Looking at the data, there are a lot of sections of Hood River County where no development has occurred,” says Eber. “At that basic level, the zoning is working. It has protected those lands. They have stayed in farm use. In those sections where there was a concentration of farm-related dwellings, there has actually been an increase in agricultural activity. Pastures have been turned into new orchards over that 11-year period. On the flip side, there were sections where non-farm dwellings were approved on the basis that they would not harm agriculture. There, we didn’t see an increase in farm activity, but we didn’t see a decrease either.” ODA’s Johnson says the orchard activity in Hood River has continued to thrive despite the fact that more houses are being built in the county and more people want to live in the country. “Siting basically only farm dwellings in farm zones has encouraged a greater investment in agriculture as farmers have more certainty about the future when it comes
