Rural Lobbyist: An Explanation of SDFU’s Position on HB 1140.

March 4, 2016 – By #South Dakota Farmer Union

   House Bill 1140 has now passed through the House and Senate. While South Dakota Farmers Union will seek efforts to remedy the legislation, here’s what you need to know in the meantime.

1. South Dakota Farmers Union still supports Ag Development.

Some people felt that by opposing HB 1140, SDFU was not supporting Ag development. This is not the case. In fact, it is because we support Ag development and the family farm that we opposed HB 1140. While the ultimate goal of HB 1140 was to speed up the conditional permitting process, it do so at the expense of landowner rights. You see the proponents never provided legislature an instance where a family farmer was denied a conditional use permit. In fact, one Senator in support offered a story of a young farmer who had to work with his zoning board to get his permit approved. Not only was he approved, but that individual has since been approved for and built a SECOND BARN. That is not a sign of a broken system, but a system built on trust and integrity. HB 1140 violates that trust and will hurt relationships that currently exist in our rural communities.

1. Shortcuts in HB 1140 may promote growth in the short term, but will impede long term growth.

As I stated above, our current system is built on the working relationships in our rural communities. Many a story can be found of individuals working through the permitting process and receiving approval. Take Hand County as an example. As one testifier pointed out, only one conditional use permit has been denied in recent memory. That permit was for a 65,000 head operation that drew the concerns of a number of individuals in that community. HB 1140 seeks CAFO development IN SPITE of landowners, rather than IN COOPERATION with landowners. That type of volatile relationship will only hurt long term growth of Ag development in our counties.

1. There is middle ground available on this issue.

Two major problems still exist in this legislation. One, all appeals of all parties will be expedited and consolidated into one appeal. So regardless of the grounds of the appeal, or who is appealing, all appeals are consolidated. SDFU believes that this can be remedied by either consolidating appeals on a like-for-like basis, or consolidating all appeals of one party. These approaches still expedite the appeals process and ensure fairness to all parties involved. The other major problem involves limiting what a landowner can appeal. HB 1140 states that parties cannot appeal ministerial or preliminary acts. Ministerial acts are simply administrative duties that would be done by the zoning commission and of little concern to the appeals process. However, preliminary acts include actions like the posting of a public notice. Under HB 1140, if the time/date/place/or venue of a hearing was incorrectly posted and a concerned party missed said hearing, that party will no longer have grounds for appeal. SDFU certainly understands the limitation on the ability to appeal ministerial acts; however certain aspects of “preliminary acts” have the potential to be relevant in an appeals process. SDFU would support leaving the limitation on ministerial acts but seeks to remove any limitation on the ability to appeal preliminary acts.   South Dakota Farmers Union is committed to the development of our agricultural communities. However we simply do not believe HB 1140 is the means to that end. Only through cooperation with our non-ag counterparts will agriculture truly flourish in South Dakota.   If you care to learn more or have questions or comments on HB 1140, contact Matt Sibley at [email protected] or by phone 605-350-8410

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Last Modified: 03/04/2016 4:58:22 pm MST