Agricultural consulting: Management of city property

Real Estate Issues, Spring 2001 by Davis, William D Jr

OVERVIEW

Our system of American government has grown in the belief that government knows what's best and rarely is there an opportunity for private firms to assist governmental institutions in specialized areas. This manuscript reports on a successful partnership between a Counselor of Real Estate and the City of Kansas City, Missouri, in the management of 7,000 acres of land held for future growth, use, and airfield protection at the Kansas City International (KCI) Airport.

BACKGROUND

Over the past 50 years, farsighted local political leaders assembled 10,000 acres of land for the Kansas City International Airport in anticipation of airport and future industrial expansion and as the solution to future problems of noise and air pollution, and wildlife. An initial 3,000 acres were acquired in the early 1950s as the Kansas City Industrial Airport, primarily to accommodate the huge maintenance base of Trans World Airlines, (at that time, the second largest airline in the world by number of aircraft).

Twenty-five years later, passenger traffic was moved to the new location, state-of-the-art terminals were constructed, and KCI became the main passenger airport for Kansas City. Along the way, an additional 7,000 acres of farmland was acquired. In some instances, certain farmland areas were contracted by Aviation to the Conservation Reserve Program simply to produce revenue, while former owners or heirs of former owners continued to farm the cleared and crop areas on a modest cash-rental basis. Former pastures, roadways, and areas that were not maintained grew up with trees and brush and there was little concern as to soil erosion or land preservation. Airport officials, concerned with an immediate need for those lands (which was not the case), had very little concern for their improvement. Subsequently, there was absolutely no effort to improve those lands.

THE SELECTION PROCESS

In 1999, after an expression of governmental and citizen concern, airport officials, still wary, but spurred on by the chair of the City Council Aviation Committee who was committed to agriculture, developed a request for proposal for the professional management of the agricultural lands. An interview and selection process followed with the selection of the author's firm, Farm Management Associates, a management firm that had operated in the Kansas City area for over 70 years. This process extended over a seven-month period but eventually resulted in approval by the City Council. The proposal of Farm Management Associates was thorough, with recommendations based on a careful pre-inspection of the property and with a proposed land improvement budget for the foreseeable future. This eventually turned out to be very important in the continuation of the project.

INITIAL RECONNAISSANCE AND PLANNING

In its first step, the Farm Management firm walked the area, inventoried the quality of the soils, and did an extensive program of soil sampling so as to be aware of needed nutrients.

Of critical importance was the need to develop a protective strip for the control of wildlife that might invade the runways. This became the first responsibility.

Over the years, deer and flocks of birds on the runways have become a hazard to flying aircraft nationally, even disabling them. The purpose of the protective strips is to plant them to a crop which would deter wildlife. These strips are 2,000 feet from the center of the protected runway. The KCI Airport has two north/south runways and one east/ west runway. The south end of the airport was already in grasses from a CRP program that had expired, so the objective was to put these grasses to a profitable use, but approximately four miles of a protective strip to the north/south runways had been recently cleared of timber and needed to be planted to brome before extreme erosion occurred. Also, deer are deterred by livestock so the objective was to develop these areas for livestock protection. As the first activity of the farm manager, a plan was laid out for the eventual agricultural use of these lands and a fall 1999 seeding of brome pasture was accomplished.

THE FARMING OPERATION

Previously, the 7,000 acres were farmed as 25 separate units. The farm managers then aligned the property into 13 productive units ranging from 400 to 800 acres in size. While most quality farm operators feel they need at least 1,000 acres per family to support their lifestyle, this program was designed to be supplementary rather than primary, so if the lands were needed for aviation purposes, this relinquishment would not cause irreparable hardship.

The land quality, even though rolling, proved to be some of the best quality upland in the state, the Higginsville Silt loam soils. Of great importance to the success of the project was in finding farmers/ operators who would do the best job of farming and, due to the rolling land, a water management/ erosion control/ terracing program was considered essential. As many of the operators who had been farming the lands for several years were very competent farmers, as managers, it was our desire that they continue farming the property, as their experience with these lands eliminated a learning curve. Some operators developed a militant stance citing assurances of airport officials up to 30 years ago that they could continue to farm the land. On previous occasions, airport personnel had addressed all operators together, and several had voiced threats to the airport management.