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If enacted by local or county governments, a new California law promises to ease the financial impacts of urban real estate values on agriculture projects. Assembly Bill 551 offers reductions on real estate taxes to landowners who dedicate their urban sites to agriculture for a minimum of five years. Such tax incentives are common, both in California and other states, on rural and suburban lands but the urban law is a first. In both rural and urban areas, access to land is one of the most pressing issues in farming, as rising land values for commercial or residential development often make agricultural uses non feasible, barring land grants, subsidies or tax incentives. Read more about the law and some of the farms it impacts in the LA Times or on one of the sponsor's sites (SPUR).
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