GILROY
– Landowners might be forced to think twice before building on
their agricultural land. The state will impose harsher penalties on
property owners who build large residential, commercial or
industrial buildings on land protected for agricultural or open
space use under the Williamson Act.
GILROY – Landowners might be forced to think twice before building on their agricultural land. The state will impose harsher penalties on property owners who build large residential, commercial or industrial buildings on land protected for agricultural or open space use under the Williamson Act.
Contracts formed under the act restrict specific parcels to agricultural or related open space use. Farmers, ranchers and other landowners are given lower property taxes that are based on farming and open space uses as opposed to full market value. Roughly 40 percent of county land is protected by Williamson Act contracts.
A new law signed by Gov. Gray Davis last week will give the Williamson Act some teeth, according to the bill’s author, Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who represents Morgan Hill and San Martin.
“The Williamson Act really is a wonderful thing, and I think the integrity of it is protected by this legislation,” he said.
The penalty for violating the act will now cost 25 percent of the value of the land as developed. Previously, there was no established penalty for Williamson Act violators in Santa Clara County.
“It was a common problem in a number of counties,” said Rachael Gibson, land-use policy aide for District 1 County Supervisor Don Gage. “(The state was) concerned with our inability to follow through when there was a breach of contract.”
In other parts of California, violators might pay a smaller percentage on the value of the land as undeveloped. Now, violators around the state will pay much more because the value of land protected by a Williamson Act contract increases once it is developed, especially if surrounding parcels are developed, Laird said.
“The value of the land determines the penalty,” Laird said.
With a stricter penalty, people will be discouraged from simply building on protected land and absorbing the small sanction as a cost of business, after years of taking advantage of lower property taxes.
“This bill helps protect the constitutional integrity of the Williamson Act,” Laird said. “It will protect millions of acres of open space, as well as help California’s farmers and ranchers who feed the world.”
Some owners of protected property have violated the act in recent years. In Tracy, a department store was built on protected land and in Tuolumne County, protected land was converted into ranchettes. Owners are penalized when they build a residential, commercial or industrial building in excess of 2,500 square feet on protected land.
In South Valley, violations often occur when pieces of a larger protected property are sold off because it is difficult to build a house on a one- or two-acre property while maintaining commercial agriculture as the land’s primary use, said Dana Peak, program manager in the county planning office.
“We come up against people having to establish a commercial ag use so that they can comply with their compatible use (of building a house),” Peak said.
Continued violations of contracts established under the act could weaken it, Laird said.
“If Williamson Act contracts can be broken without significant penalty, there was a concern that courts would invalidate the Williamson Act,” Laird said. “If that happened, farmers and ranchers would have to pay significantly higher property taxes. Some would go out of production and many, especially small farmers who have higher costs, would be under great financial pressure to develop their land.”
The Santa Clara County planners in September drafted a list of 31 property owners – 15 of which are in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and the surrounding area – that need to be excluded from the Williamson Act, although they are not all necessarily violating a contract, Gibson said. Some never had a contract but are within a protected area.
