|
Related stories:
State Recognizes Yolo County as
Williamson Act Stalwart
Read About Two "Heroes of the Williamson
Act"
WOODLAND –
Californians who enjoy the bounty of the
state’s farms and ranches, who
appreciate open countryside, and who
believe it’s important to both
accommodate growth and preserve the
traditional agricultural economy should
celebrate: Today is the 40th anniversary
of the California Land Conservation Act,
better known as the Williamson Act.
“The landscape
throughout California would look
dramatically different without the
Williamson Act,” said California
Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman, a
rancher who has property enrolled in the
program. “The Williamson Act has proven
to be a tremendous deterrent to leapfrog
development and poorly planned growth,
and is a boon to agriculture.”
The California
Legislature passed the Williamson Act in
1965 to balance the pressures of urban
growth on agricultural land by providing
an incentive for farmers and ranchers to
remain in agriculture. When land is
enrolled in a Williamson Act contract,
the landowner is taxed at a rate based
on the actual use of the land for
agricultural purposes, as opposed to its
Proposition 13 or unrestricted market
value. The program is estimated to save
agricultural landowners from 20 to 99
percent in property tax liability each
year. In return, the landowner commits
to restricting the use of his or her
land to agricultural and open space for
at least 10 years. The contracts are
automatically renewed each year.
“Research tells us
that one in three farmers and ranchers
enrolled in the Williamson Act would
have left agriculture without it,” said
Debbie Sareeram, Interim Director of the
California Department of Conservation,
which administers the program. “More
than half of California’s 30 million
acres of agricultural and open space –
including 70 percent of our prime
farmland -- is protected under the Act.
The importance of the Williamson Act’s
contribution to the state’s economy
cannot be overstated.”
The Williamson Act
has five goals:
♦ To preserve
farmland for a secure food supply for
the state, nation and future
generations.
♦ To maintain
agriculture's contribution to local and
state economic health.
♦ To provide a tax
incentive to farmers and ranchers who
restrict their land to long-term
contracts.
♦ To promote orderly
city growth and to discourage leapfrog
development and the premature loss of
farmland.
♦ To preserve open
space for its scenic, social, aesthetic
and wildlife values.
Every county in the
state except Del Norte, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Inyo and Yuba offers
Williamson Act contracts. In recent
years, Imperial, Mono, Merced, Modoc and
Sutter counties have begun programs,
swelling the enrollment from 15,969,159
acres in the 1990-91 fiscal year to
16,639,444 acres in the 2004-05 fiscal
year. The top counties, by acreage, are
Kern (more than 1.7 million), Fresno
(1.5 million) and Tulare (1.1 million).
“Agriculture is a
huge part of California’s economy, more
than $30 billion a year,” noted Bill
Pauli, President of the California Farm
Bureau Federation. “The Williamson Act
program is vitally important to our
farmers and ranchers.”
The Williamson Act
traces its roots to the post-World War
II period. During that time,
California’s agricultural and open space
lands began to face dramatically
increasing conversion pressures from
population growth, new commercial
enterprises, and rising property taxes.
Valuable farmland began disappearing at
an alarming rate. In 1965, an interim
committee of the California Assembly
generated Assembly Bill 2117, authored
by John Williamson. In the two years
following passage of the Williamson Act,
only 200,000 acres were enrolled under
contract in six counties. The program
might have remained small if not for an
addition to the state’s constitution
that permits the property to be valued
on a restricted basis.
In 1971, the program
received another boost when the Open
Space Subvention Act created a formula
for allocating payments from the state
to local governments based on acreage
enrolled in the Williamson Act. That
provided a tangible incentive to
initiate more contracts by partially
replacing property tax revenues lost by
counties on enrolled land.
While the amount of
acreage covered under the Williamson Act
has grown in recent years, the program
does face challenges. The State Supreme
Court has ruled on two occasions that
the preferred method to end a contract
is non-renewal: allowing the contract
and tax benefits to wind down over the
remainder of the 10-year commitment.
However, some local entities have simply
cancelled Williamson Act contracts
without adequate review, an action that
can prompt litigation.
“We have seen
evidence throughout the state of
enrolled property being used for things
not related to agricultural or open
space use – things such as driving
ranges, strip malls, houses, warehouses
and even private water-skiing lakes,”
said Dennis O’Bryant, head of DOC’s
Division of Land Resource Protection.
“Most of the time, these violations are
the result of poor record-keeping and
statutory misinterpretations. We work
closely with local government to ensure
that the Act is upheld.”
Beginning January 1,
2004, a new deterrent to Williamson Act
abuses went into effect. AB 1492 was
enacted to address the most egregious
violations by substantially increasing
penalties for contract violations. If,
for example, incompatible development
takes place on contracted property, the
penalty can be as much as 25 percent of
the unrestricted fair market value of
not only the land, but also of the
buildings and related improvements on
the land.
In addition to the
Williamson Act, DOC offers landowners
two other options for protecting
agricultural land. In 1998, SB 1182 was
signed into law. Sometimes called the
"Super Williamson Act," It provides a
method for landowners to convert
existing Williamson Act contracts to
20-year "Farmland Security Zone''
contracts that provide additional
property tax savings. More than 806,000
acres statewide are enrolled in that
program. The California Farmland
Conservancy Program provides grant
funding for projects that use and
support permanent agricultural
conservation easements. CFCP grants have
helped protect about 26,000 acres
statewide.
# # #
|