It may feel like a midlife crisis in Santa Clara County, but for
much of the state, the Williamson Act
’s 40th birthday is a time for celebration.
It may feel like a midlife crisis in Santa Clara County, but for much of the state, the Williamson Act’s 40th birthday is a time for celebration.
“In addition to protecting one of our state’s most valuable resources, our farm and ranch land, the Williamson Act has also enhanced our quality of life by protecting our precious watersheds and wildlife habitat,” said John Gamper, director of taxation and land use for the California Farm Bureau Federation. “It has encouraged forward-thinking land use planning and prevented leap-frog developments that can be so devastating to farmland and other natural resources.”
That may be true in most of California, but it’s been a different story in this county.
Enacted in 1965, the Williamson Act aims to preserve farmland and open space by providing generous tax breaks to farmers and other large landowners who do not develop their holdings. By their own admission, Santa Clara County planners haven’t done a good job enforcing the act, and a lot of Williamson lands have been subdivided and developed.
And at the same time county officials are neck-deep in a three-year process to clean up its Williamson Act mess, county supervisors may soon allow a parcel in east Morgan Hill to cancel out of the act, even though the land is surrounded entirely by open space.
Jenny Derry, executive director of the county farm bureau, said the county may be at a crisis point with Williamson, but can look forward to a sunny golden age with the act.
“It is the nature of living in a place where urban needs are encroaching on a rural lifestyle. Increasingly, people who own rural lands are being pressured to sell to developers,” Derry said. “There are a lot of people who like living the rural lifestyle and the Williamson Act is the best way to lower the tax burden for those who want to do that. We think the changes that are coming will help out.”
Gamper says there are other serious challenges facing the act, such as shoddily enforced agriculture preserve laws and the act’s tenuous political viability.
But, he said, if properly administered, the act can be a boon to the economy and open space for another 40 years.
“In addition to its significant impacts on the state and local economies,” Gamper said, “the Williamson Act is widely appreciated as one of the most important environmental laws ever adopted in California.”
Matt King covers Santa Clara County for The Times. He can be reached at 847-7240 or mk***@gi************.com.
