Article taken from the
Santa Barbara News Press
Marin has found success fighting off urban sprawl By MELINDA
BURNS 3/16/03
Driving through the verdant hills of western Marin County, it's hard to believe that a population of 8 million people is just an hour away. Generations of families have made a living in dairy and cattle ranching here, but it's getting harder and harder to fend off urban sprawl. How does the county do it? First, the Board of Supervisors has not approved any subdivisions on agricultural land since 1970. Second, a home-grown land trust offers ranchers who are land rich but cash poor a way to stay in business, by purchasing their development rights. Thirty years ago, the county reduced the development potential of agricultural land on the coast, also called West Marin, to one home per 60 acres. Any new construction, the county declared, must support and not undermine ranching and farming operations. The conversion of ranches to golf courses was prohibited. "We just have this sort of absolute commitment to agriculture," said Steve Kinsey, a county supervisor and a director of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT). "We recognize that it maintains our cultural fabric and provides us food security, diverse local employment, and a remarkable amount of land in open space."
About 40 percent of Marin County, most of it in West Marin, is actively farmed or ranched. Despite the county's efforts, the number of dairies has dropped from 100 in 1970 to 31 today. Now they are threatened, not by subdivisions, but by hotel heirs, dot-com millionaires and other wealthy buyers who want to build a mansion getaway in a rural area. Since 1980, the Marin land trust, a pioneering nonprofit group, has helped family ranchers resist the temptation to sell out. With public and private money, the trust has purchased the development rights on 32,000 acres from 47 ranching families. The cost was $22 million; in return, the families gave up their right in perpetuity to subdivide the land for homes. The Point Reyes National Seashore, with 15 beef and dairy ranches, also plays an important role, Mr. Kinsey said. "Twenty percent of our dairy industry takes place within the park," he said. "Without it, we would lose the rest. If the park had not been there and all those lands had been invested in vacation getaways, the incentive would have gone away for the rest of the county."
But 32,000 acres of protected farmland represent less than a third of Marin's agricultural land. Another 80,000 acres are still at risk, preservationists say. "We're hoping the county will hold the line," said Bob Berner, the land trust executive director. On Nicasio Valley Road, about six miles from the national seashore, Rick and Randy LaFranchi's family sold or transferred the development rights to its dairy ranch years ago. The LaFranchi brothers say their biggest worry right now is competition from the Central Valley, where agribusiness firms are building much larger dairies than theirs. "It seems like a lot of people are happy with MALT," Rick LaFranchi said. "And the county is pretty supportive. We're committed to doing the best we can, but there's not any dairymen making any money right now."
At the same time, critics say, the county has made it impossible to build even two homes on property in West Marin, never mind a shopping center. "Anyone wanting to be elected supervisor would not befriend a developer of any sort, no matter what they had to give up, including affordable housing," said Gerry Coles, an Inverness real estate agent. "The only possible deal is either MALT or do nothing. They've tried to buy off the ranchers, but most ranchers don't feel they're getting fair land values."
Mr. Coles said he recently represented a developer who finally dropped his plans to restore an old boarded-up hotel in downtown Point Reyes Station. The project included 10 homes on a private sewer system. "It created such a hue and cry," Mr. Coles said. "People thought it would unleash development in the hills around town."
Land prices are now so high that only the very wealthy can afford to buy ranches in Marin County. To ensure that agriculture remains the primary use of the land, county officials say they are taking some extraordinary steps. Since 1994, the county has required home builders on ranch land in West Marin to guarantee, through a deed restriction, that 95 percent of their land would remain in agriculture or open space. But now that wealthy buyers are snapping up 600-acre dairies, the county is changing tack. An application for a new home on a hill overlooking Tomales Bay, across from the national seashore, brought the matter to a head last year. The 200-acre property is zoned for agriculture. The owner wants to construct 11,500 square feet of buildings, including a house, guesthouse, two-car garage, storage building and barn, plus a driveway two-thirds a mile long, with three turnouts for fire truck access. The county approved the project, but required the owner to submit a ranch management plan for the rest of his land. This time, the deed restriction stipulated that if the owner didn't run the ranch, MALT would find someone else to do it. "It's difficult to stick a hoe in somebody's hand and make them farm the land," said Brian Crawford, county deputy planning director. "That's the issue we've been wrestling with."
The project has been appealed to the state Coastal Commission by the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, a nonprofit preservationist group. Members say the buildings would ruin the views along the bay and set a precedent for other buyers who are eager to build hillside mansions on former dairy ranches. "We'd all be depressed by seeing a scattering of houses violating these pristine open grasslands," said Catherine Caufield, executive director of the Environmental Action Committee. "It's not some idle threat. Why open the floodgates?"
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