Gilroy
– Santa Clara County still does not have a clear policy to
regulate agriculture land and open space protected by the state’s
Williamson Act. But 18 months after its last effort, a
”
stakeholders
”
group will try once more to establish explicit criteria to
determine which properties deserve the act’s generous tax
breaks.
Gilroy – Santa Clara County still does not have a clear policy to regulate agriculture land and open space protected by the state’s Williamson Act. But 18 months after its last effort, a “stakeholders” group will try once more to establish explicit criteria to determine which properties deserve the act’s generous tax breaks.
The stakeholders’ group has three tasks: Settle on a definition of commercial agriculture to be approved by the county board of supervisors, something the county has never done; recommend criteria to apply to new Williamson Act applications; and develop criteria for existing properties.
That last element promises to be the most controversial. Decades of lax enforcement by the county led to a number of improper subdivisions, and a lot of parcel owners who face expulsion from the act or are stuck with a piece of property that they can’t develop. It takes nine years to escape the Act without penalty.
“It’s going to be nasty,” said Larry Matteson, of the Heritage Realty Group in Morgan Hill. “The interpretations have changed and I’ve dealt with several people that previously had approval. We have a lot of property that should not have been allowed that was subdivided in the ’70s and ’80s.”
Also known as the California Land Conservation Act, Williamson was passed in 1965 to preserve farmland and open spaces in California. Sixteen million acres – or about half of the state’s farmland – is under the Williamson contract, including more than 328,000 acres in Santa Clara County, about 40 percent of the county’s total land area.
Matteson’s solution, one shared by Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, is to allow an amnesty for property owners whose land doesn’t meet Williamson requirements to withdraw with lighter penalties.
“They need to go through and do that now,” Matteson said. “Give everybody amnesty and let them pull out. If the county was at fault then there should be no penalty, or maybe five percent of a reasonable assessed value of the land.”
The state would have to approve of any amnesty program. A spokesman for the California Department of Conservation, which administers the act, said recently that the chances of an amnesty “are not good.”
The Williamson Act is the cause of much confusion for property owners and officials alike. Rachael Gibson, land-use policy aide to Gage, said Monday that she receives anywhere from two to seven calls a day about Williamson, mostly from prospective buyers who don’t understand the benefits and obligations attached to land purchased under the complicated act.
“Anytime you have an issue that resembles an onion you’re going to have several different layers of meaning,” Gibson said. “Ninety-nine percent of buyers don’t go looking for Williamson Act land, they’re looking for land to build their dream homes. They find out about the tax savings and that’s were the research stops. It should dawn on people that you can’t get something for nothing, but it doesn’t always.
“The big kicker is that we don’t know what to tell them. We have very vague state guidelines, but the conservation department is more than willing to penalize people found to be out of compliance.”
Gage has met with Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who authored a recent bill stiffening the penalties for illegitimate Williamson properties to feel him out about a possible amnesty. Gibson said that lawmakers are concerned that an amnesty in one county will lead to a statewide domino effect.
“I’m aware of problems and my staff is working with interested parties to see if there’s a remedy,” Laird said. “One of the challenges is that if anything is done legislatively, it would apply to all 58 counties though it’s an effort to solve a problem unique to Santa Clara County. I think it’s important for the county to address the way it’s administering the act before we can see what kind of problem we have.”
Landowners who enter into a Williamson contract receive significant tax breaks in exchange for maintaining an agricultural enterprise or preserving open space. There are strict limits on the number and size of subdivisions allowed and the size of houses and other non-agriculture structures that can be developed.
The act is managed county by county with ultimate oversight resting with the department of conservation. A 2002 state audit found that the Santa Clara County allowed large tracts of land under Williamson contracts to be subdivided into smaller lots that were marketed or developed as home sites – in apparent contrast to the purpose of the act.
In August 2003 the county’s planning department proposed an ordinance to enforce the act that was met with such enmity from the public that the whole process was tabled – for 16 months.
Then in 2003, California legislators passed AB 1492, which raised the penalty for land owners caught subverting the act. The previous penalty was 12.5 percent of the value of the undeveloped land. It now stands at 25 percent of the value after development.
In response to all of that, planners adopted the most stringent standards allowed by the state. They applied financial requirements reserved for crop land to grazing land, and insisted on income requirements that many say are too high.
Two property owners whose applications were rejected by the county planning department challenged the decisions in front of the board of supervisors last November, and county officials were finally inspired to take another shot at a permanent solution to the act’s vague requirements.
The stakeholders committee is comprised of Gage, Agriculture Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove, other county officials and a collection of agricultural, environmental and homeowners groups. Jenny Derry, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau, said she hopes the process will tie together the groups’ sometimes disparate interests. One of the challenges, she said, will be setting a reasonable definition of a viable agriculture enterprise.
“What I want to have happen is to have a really open discussion about what our timeline is and what we’re trying to accomplish,” Derry said. “People in the act need to be viably in it and not because they want to build a monster house and needed a way to do that.”
County officials had hoped to start the stakeholders process in January and the committee will have to work under a somewhat tight time constraint. The applications are due in August, but Gibson said the county needs to have a clear policy in place before summer.
“We need to get a policy by May, “Gibson said. “We have a very tight time frame, but we also don’t want to jam the stakeholders so much that the criteria aren’t viable. We want them to put a great deal of thought into them.”
The first meeting is scheduled for 3pm, Feb. 22 at the San Martin Lions Club, 12415 Murphy Ave., and is open to the public.
