Revenue to be used to compensate for Williamson Act costs
Gilroy – County supervisors Tuesday approved more than 15 new fees to raise additional revenues to offset costs of administering a program that gives tax breaks to owners of farmland and ranches.
Prior to approval, District One Supervisor Don Gage pushed through reductions on several of the fees, including one for property owners who submit fresh applications for tax breaks under the Williamson Act. The staff proposed a $2,285 fee for applying for a contract, which Gage found exorbitant and asked to be lowered to $1,100.
“All you’re doing is penalizing people when all we’re talking about is preserving agriculture,” Gage said of the original amount.
However, one fee that remained the same was the application to cancel the Williamson Act contract. Landowners who want out will still have to shell out $3,630. These fees, recommended by the Santa Clara County Office of Budget and Analysis, are set to shore up additional costs associated with administering the Williamson Act. The county says it will have to hire 3.5 new staff members to provide oversight and monitoring of the act. The Williamson Act budget, which already runs more than $500,000, will see that amount balloon up to $824,276.
The board hopes that the addition of the new positions will help improve the oversight of the land under contract with the act.
In 2002, a California Department of Conservation audit found that Santa Clara County had done a poor job of enforcing the law and created a spider’s web of illegitimate parcels.
Of the county’s 3,000 Williamson parcels, almost 1,200 are either too small to qualify for the tax break or are not farmed, and their owners are saving thousands each year. Those farms deemed too small or are not abiding by the rules of the Williamson Act will be receiving a non-renewal letter which will sever the contract.
The property owners who do believe they are abiding by the rules will have a chance to protest the letter but will have to pay a fee of $772 to do so. This did not sit well with Gage who said farms that prove they are using their land for agricultural purposes will have their fee waived.
“They wanted to charge them to show they were legitimate and that’s wrong,” Gage said. Gage said that just because the county got itself into a jam does not mean they should put it off on farmers.
Jenny Derry, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau, was extremely pleased with the decision to waive the fee, but for different reasons.
“We think that there will be people who will get the wrong letter of non-renewal,” said Derry, who added that with so many farms there are bound to be mistakes made. “(Legitimate farms) should not have to pay the fee. This is much more fair.”
However, Derry was saddened to find out that supervisors opted not to lower the fee to apply for the Open Space Easement Act. The Open Space Act does not always provide as generous a tax break as the Williamson Act, but it has fewer development restrictions. So even if the land was not being used for agricultural or ranching use, the owners could still get a tax break even if they developed 5 percent of the land, Gage said.
“I don’t want people to put ag use (on their land) just to get under the Williamson Act,” Gage said, adding that an owner could grow grapes just to let them sit there and die. “If you don’t want to use your land for ag I don’t want you to go into ag.”
Gage said that he saw no reason to give tax breaks to those developing on part of their land while letting weeds grow on the rest of the property.
Although Gage admitted that lowering some of the fees will have an effect on the general fund he said that land owners should not be penalized for the county getting itself in a predicament.
“You have to do what’s fair here,” Gage said.
