Bill Based on Stanford Law School Student Research Signed Into California Law


A bill inspired by a Stanford Law student’s research and designed to dramatically increase urban farming in California was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. AB 551 was based on a paper by Nicholas Reed, JD ’12 (BA ’02), which he undertook during his 3L year while in Local Government Law, under the guidance of Richard Thompson Ford (BA ’88), George E. Osborne Professor of Law. 
Reed also worked on the paper with Alumni Mentor-in-Residence Juan Carlos Cancino, JD ’08 (BA ’02). Stanford grads and San Francisco natives, Reed and Cancino had some experience working together on the local food movement through The Greenhouse 
Project, a nonprofit they helped form in 2008.

“What’s so exciting about urban agriculture as small business is that it has all of the dimensions of the best urban greening projects—environmental, aesthetic, educational, and cultural—while generating jobs and revenue to sustain itself,” says Cancino. “Just look at Little City Gardens in San Francisco—it’s a jewel.”

The research was intended to bring awareness of the most important roadblock to urban agriculture: property tax. By authorizing counties to create urban agriculture incentive zones, AB 551 allows urban property owners to benefit from reduced property taxes by entering into contracts with farmers eager to create small-scale urban farms in cities.

That this law began life in a law school classroom is no surprise to Reed. “Although there is no ‘urban ag’ law class at Stanford, as the implications involved the interplay of 
state and local government law, the research was a 
natural extension of 
Professor Ford’s course.”

Still, it required a co-operative effort to move from academic paper to real-life law. Through a small working group, Reed and Cancino partnered with the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association and gained the crucial support of the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance. It was through these connections that Reed joined a meeting with Assemblymember Philip Y. Ting, another San Francisco resident. The assemblyman leveraged their research in crafting AB 551, which he introduced to the California State Legislature in February. Reed and Cancino both testified before legislative committees in support of the bill. AB 551 passed in both the Assembly and the Senate and was signed by the governor 
in September.

“It is absolutely amazing to think that an independent study project led to a state law,” says Reed. “I would encourage all students to pursue ideas of true value to themselves while in law school, because you never know what may come from them.” SL