Public Policy

Marin Agricultural Land Trust has been able to permanently protect more than 40,000 acres of environmentally irreplaceable and economically productive Marin County farmland through the acquisition of agricultural conservation easements that prohibit subdivision and non-agricultural development forever. Through its education and outreach programs, MALT also promotes public policies that support and enhance agriculture, such as the following:

Agricultural Zoning

The 1973 Marin County Countywide Plan ultimately established three environmental corridors for planning purposes: a Coastal Recreation Corridor for open space, recreation, and agricultural lands; an Inland Rural Corridor mostly for agriculture, but also for resource and habitat protection; and a City-centered Corridor for Marin's 11 cities, plus bayfront, streamside, and ridge areas designated for protection as scenic resources. The 1982 Countywide Plan reaffirmed these goals.

Marin Countywide Plan

The Marin Countywide Plan guides policy- and decision-makers in environmental, social, and economic planning issues. It is currently in the process of being updated, and all Marin residents are encouraged to participate in the community workshops and public hearings that will be held. Why bother? To demonstrate that everyone can make a difference in the future of his or her home, it is perhaps instructive to look back at the 1967 West Marin General Plan as it was first proposed by the Marin County Planning Department and adopted by the then Board of Supervisors.

Chief among the proposals was a "lagoon development" with an ultimate population of 125,000 on the shores of Tomales Bay in the San Andreas Rift Zone. Admittedly, the planners said, "the earthquake hazard has not been taken into account." They left that consideration to the future developers who they were certain would make the "best use of land and structure…to reduce hazards to human life."

An extension of California State Highway 17 would have become the principal east-west arterial across Marin County, and a scenic "parkway" road would have traversed the Bolinas Ridge and three other sites.

Walker Creek, which drains about 40% of the Tomales Bay watershed, would have been dammed, renamed Walker Lake Recreation Area, and developed extensively with facilities for water-oriented recreational activities. A golfer could have shot nine holes on a 100-acre course just east of Point Reyes National Seashore, if the planners had gotten their way. They liked the idea of a second golf course located right inside the national park, too.

About 20,000 students would have been served by 20 elementary schools, five intermediate schools, and three high schools. (Currently, West Marin has six elementary schools, one high school, and four one-room schoolhouses housing a total of 1,700 students.)

One hundred acres of land were to be reserved for shopping centers of various types, with an additional set-aside for car dealerships. The wetlands and pasture bounded by Point Reyes Station and Olema on the north and south, and Highway One and Bear Valley Road on the east and west would have housed 375 acres of commercial, tourist-serving facilities.

Even the Olema Cemetery was affected by the plan, its historic gravestones to be replaced with "flush plate markers to achieve a more pleasing visual effect."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…Actually, the proposals had little to say about ranching or approximately 85 dairies operating at the time, other than "…private resorts of an extensive nature should be developed on various of the large ranch holdings." Grazing could continue, they allowed, until development occurred. The word "agriculture" was never even mentioned.

Fortunately, concerned citizens who were determined to keep West Marin from turning into an urban center defined by freeways and shopping malls drew a line in the soil. They elected new, anti-development supervisors, halted development plans, protected wildlife habitat, and helped preserve agriculture's century-old tradition here.

However, the planners of the '60s were prescient in some ways. They predicted 2.7 million visitors a year would visit Point Reyes National Seashore in the not-too-distant future. According to Park estimates, last year's visitation was about 2 million. Estimates were that a quarter million overnight visitors would tuck themselves into bed at the many hotels, motels, and campgrounds envisioned for West Marin. Park surveys suggest that about 125,000 people now stay overnight in motels and bed-and-breakfast inns; another 100,000 camp somewhere in the vicinity.

The 1967 vision of a tourist-serving industry has indeed come to pass. It co-exists with ranching, at least for the time being, but as growth in eastern Marin and the Bay Area continues, sprawl, development, and rapidly rising land prices threaten the survival of agriculture and our family farms more than ever.

If you value this land and Marin's rural heritage, if you share our belief that the preservation of family farms and agricultural lands for local food production, open space, and wildlife habitat benefits all of us, you can play a vital role in safeguarding these irreplaceable resources. Let's turn hindsight into foresight by working together to ensure that our agricultural history and farming economy are kept in clear view as we once again plan for the future of Marin County.

Williamson Act

In any conversation involving agricultural land preservation in California, one term almost always comes up—the Williamson Act. The Land Conservation or Williamson Act was developed in response to the rapid conversion of agricultural lands into housing developments and commercial enterprises in post - World War II California.

Named for its author, John Williamson, and enacted in 1965 by the state legislature, this bill proposed the use of contracts between landowners and local governments to voluntarily restrict development on parcels for a period of 10 years.

Because landowners, assessors, and local governments were not totally convinced that the restrictions would provide a basis for lower tax assessments, during the first two years of the Williamson Act only 200,000 acres in six counties were enrolled. The program may have remained small if not for an addition to the state constitution. Article 13 states the interest of the state in preserving open-space lands and provides a constitutional basis for valuing property according to its actual use. With this amendment came allowances for preferential assessments for recreational, scenic, and natural resource areas, as well as lands devoted to production of food and fiber.

In 1998 the Williamson Act was amended to provide for the establishment of Farmland Security Zones (FSZ). Under the resulting Super Williamson Act, landowners can receive an additional 35 percent reduction in the land's value for tax purposes. This reduction is earned only if the farmers and ranchers keep the land in the program for 20 years. FSZ contracts are like the Williamson Act contracts in that each year another year is added to the agreement unless the landowner or the county does not renew the contract.

The Williamson Act works in this manner: an agricultural property owner enters into a contract with the county to restrict the use of the land to agricultural production for a period of not less than 10 years. During the time of the contract, the landowner is taxed on the capitalization of income from the land, as opposed to the potential market value of the property. Local governments receive partial reimbursement of lost property tax revenues from the state under the Open Space Act of 1971.

The number of acres enrolled in the Williamson Act have grown steadily. Forty-nine of California's 58 counties have adopted the act, with a total of 15.8 million acres being covered.

In a recent survey of landowners in the program, 85 percent of participants are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the benefits of enrolling in either the Williamson Act or Farmland Security Zone contract.

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