Farmland preservation work to feed Ashland County comprehensive plan, officials say

Ashland County planning committee members said work completed and in progress for the county’s farmland preservation plan will inform the agriculture element of the new comprehensive plan, but the farmland-preservation document will remain a separate, lengthier plan.

Pat Kinney and other committee members described ongoing farmland preservation meetings and a plan update process that will run alongside the comprehensive-plan update. “The farmland preservation plan has to be updated anyway and just with the timing of it all it ties in with the schedule we're on,” Pat said. Committee members said the farmland preservation and forestry plans will provide background and data that the comprehensive plan can summarize rather than reproduce in full.

Alyssa (name in transcript) and Emily (Northwest Regional Planning) explained the relationship between the two efforts. Emily said the farmland-preservation plan and the comprehensive plan follow the same adoption procedures, so the two documents can be coordinated. “So they're two distinct but closely related planning documents…the comprehensive plan would be thinking about broad land-use guidance and then the farmland preservation plan focused on ag land protection,” Emily said.

Pat and others noted recent ag meetings held in December and January and said the farmland-preservation draft includes statistics on farm types and herd counts that can be used for the comp-plan’s data needs. Committee members agreed the comp plan will include a much briefer ag chapter that draws on the farmland-preservation plan’s detailed background.

Ending: Members said they will continue monthly farmland-preservation meetings for the remainder of the year and will coordinate findings and recommendations into the comprehensive-plan process, with Northwest Regional Planning providing draft materials for subcommittee review.