The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

In August 2019, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted OurCounty, an extensive and thorough regional sustainability plan for Los Angeles. Within Strategy 3A, which calls on the County to increase housing density and limit urban sprawl, is Action 47, which institutionalizes a County effort to “Support the preservation of agricultural and working lands, including rangelands, by limiting the conversion of these lands to residential or other uses...” The Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning (LACDRP) has been tasked by the Los Angeles County Chief Sustainability Office to identify responses that promote “equitable and sustainable land use and development without displacement.”

In this brief, the Antelope Valley is framed as an important case study that (1) highlights the current state of California’s desert farmlands and (2) the impact solar might have on these rural places. Specifically, this brief describes the patterns associated with these lands by farmland quality, physical land uses, and zoning, and assesses how these characteristics might influence or be influenced by the relationship the land has with ground-mounted utility-scale solar energy development. The brief then identifies policy mechanisms that the LACDRP can implement to better plan for both agriculture and solar.