San Jose
– It was only a matter of time before Santa Clara County was
forced to address its cloudy Williamson Act policy, and that time
came with Bob Zaffarano’s efforts to get his ranch approved for Act
protection.
San Jose – It was only a matter of time before Santa Clara County was forced to address its cloudy Williamson Act policy, and that time came with Bob Zaffarano’s efforts to get his ranch approved for Act protection.
“Every time I answered one of their questions, I’d get another reason why I was being denied,” Zaffarano told the Board of Supervisors earlier this week of his experiences with the planning department. “I made a lot of financial decisions based on information from the county. I don’t know why I was turned down.”
At first it was because planners thought the 180-acre ranch didn’t have enough cattle. Then it was because it didn’t generate enough income and Zaffarano couldn’t produce the requisite financial documentation.
But the larger reason Zaffarano’s application was denied is that the county has been lax in developing its policy and the planning department was left to set its own criteria to judge applications. And reeling from a 2002 state audit that criticized the county’s handling of the Act and 2003 legislation that raised the stakes for violators, planners have been taking a hard-line approach to the process.
“I think what happened is that the planning department wanted to whip out an ordinance real quick and it’s a really complicated issue,” Supervisor Don Gage said Wednesday. “The audit only dinged us on a couple of issues and they were trying to rewrite the whole Act. They were overreacting.”
Also known as the California Land Conservation Act, Williamson was passed in 1965 to preserve farmland and open spaces in California. Landowners who enter into a Williamson contract receive significant tax breaks in exchange for maintaining an agricultural enterprise.
In August 2003 the 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. Meanwhile, Zaffarano and two other landowners filed new applications and the county’s existing contract holders were left to their own devices.
“The issue never came back to the board and there’s no good explanation as to why that didn’t happen,” said Jenny Derry, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau. “Everybody tried to make nice, but the issue has been on the back burner way too long. It’s only going to get more complicated the longer we wait to reopen it and discuss it with the public.”
Gage said that he was trying “to let the dust settle,” and he believes that now that the county has committed to work with the public to set a new policy, it will avoid the fury that foiled the last attempt.
“When you involve the public you generally have a positive output,” he said. “We have everyone focused and we’re going to give this issue the attention it deserves.”
The county expects to hold public meetings and invite “stakeholders” from the Farm Bureau, the Santa Clara County Cattlemen’s Association and homeowner associations. The first meeting should be shortly after the first of the year. At the end of the process, the county hopes to have a firm definition of agriculture and transparent rules governing application of the Act.
“I think that will do a lot of good toward getting people out who don’t belong under the Act without a lot of hurt feelings,” Derry said. “Someone who’s had a contract for more than 20 years might not meet the current definition of ‘open space.” So, should he be kicked out? Should he have to make his land current? Or does the county have to honor the contract it signed?”
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.
But a 2002 state audit found that the 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.
“These smaller parcels are creating rural subdivision-type ranchettes, which, in our opinion, violate the intent of the Williamson Act,” Samuel Hull, an auditor with the state’s Department of Finance, wrote in a letter to the county. “We were unable to identify any livestock or commercial farming on the ranchettes.”
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.
“The income requirement is something we’re looking at and I think it will be lowered,” said Deputy County Executive Jane Decker. “Some of the proposals made after the audit may have been too arbitrary, but the loose standards we had before were creating problems.”
Planning department officials could not be reached for comment, but Agriculture Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove said Wednesday that the department has not strayed from its traditional role.
“The planning department has always defined criteria under the Williamson Act. The only thing that’s different now is that the board will endorse a policy.”
Officials are hopeful that a new policy will be in place by April, before next year’s application process begins in May. But according to Decker, existing contract holders are a much larger problem.
“New applications have been less of a problem than the people who are already in,” she said. “The county was being lax in reviewing property owners.”
That lack of oversight 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.
In an effort to remedy that, Gage and Derry plan to approach the state with a deal for an amnesty that will allow land holders who signed contracts that have been invalidated by changes to the law to escape the Act with penalty.
But Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the California department of Conservation, which administers the Act, said chances of an amnesty are “not good.”
“There’s been one waiver of cancellation fees since 1965,” Drysdale said. “I don’t know the circumstances, but they were exceptional.”
