Property Tax Breaks Aim To Help Urban Farms Crop Up

By Tara Duggan

Updated 4:47 pm, Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Kevin Bayuk (left) and Dorsey Kilbourn of the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco work at the 18th and Rhode Island Permaculture Garden in S.F. in 2014. The garden is owned by a private landowner who later received a property tax break for allowing the land to be used for agriculture under the state’s Urban Agricultural Incentive Zones act. less

Up and down the state, property owners can receive tax breaks for allowing their unused, and often blighted, urban lots to transform into commercial or noncommercial farms under a law that went into effect in 2014. It hasn’t yet resulted in a rash of urban farming, as just four property owners in the state have enrolled so far, including one in San Francisco. But state Assembly member Phil Ting D-San Francisco, wants to extend the law so more cities, and landowners, can take part.

“Urban farming needs more time to take root and help more Californians access nutritious food in their own neighborhoods,” Ting said in a press release. “An urban farm can be an oasis. There is great interest to tame the concrete jungle with green spaces that transform blight into bounty.”

Since the law was enacted, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose and San Diego have all passed local ordinances providing financial incentives to turn unused lots into urban agricultural zones for a range of uses, including vegetable farming, beekeeping and nonprofit teaching gardens. The law expires in 2019, and with AB465, Ting proposes extending it to 2029 to allow more cities and counties — which must have a minimum of 250,000 residents — to follow suit.

One of those is Los Angeles, which is working toward passing an ordinance. Unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, as well as Santa Clara County, already offer the tax breaks.

To apply, property owners must allow farms to stay at least five years to receive the tax break and have property of 0.1 acre to 3 acres in size, with no dwellings on-site. The law assesses the plots’ property value at about $11,000 per acre, the same as irrigated farmland, which can greatly reduce the owner’s property taxes.

In San Jose, a property owner with two adjacent parcels has just turned the land over to Valley Verde, a nonprofit that gives low-income families tools and training to grow their own vegetables in planter boxes.

“It’s a win-win for the owners,” said Art Henriques of San Jose’s planning department. “And the nonprofit gets at least a five-year opportunity to do something productive for some people in the community.”

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan