Patrick Sullivan and Clifford Dawson had little reason to expect
that county planners would balk at their plans for developing 20
acres in east Morgan Hill.
Patrick Sullivan and Clifford Dawson had little reason to expect that county planners would balk at their plans for developing 20 acres in east Morgan Hill.
Yes, the land is covered by the Williamson Act, which requires a farming enterprise, but Sullivan and Dawson had plans for a nursery. And yes, the pair planned to construct a 14,000 square-foot house, complete with a gym and locker rooms, a ball room and a concert stage, but their house wouldn’t be the biggest planners had approved.
So Dawson and Sullivan were surprised – and mad – when planners said no because the house was too big.
“I think the Williamson Act is a political thing,” Sullivan said recently. “On a scale of one to 10, I’d give the planning department a zero, because they won’t give you an answer. They won’t tell you what to do or what the square footage needs to be. They won’t commit.”
Actually, planning officials have committed.
Chastened by a state audit criticizing their handling of the act, and frightened by a 2004 law doubling the penalties for illegal development, the Santa Clara County Planning Office has adopted the state’s most stringent criteria for developing land covered by Williamson contracts.
But critics of the office say planners have overstepped their bounds, drafting ruling that they’re only supposed to interpret and enforcing them selectively.
“The (planning office) is a building full of people who think they are legislators and run the county as they see fit,” said Don Clawson of Morgan Hill Realty. “
They make law, but they don’t even interpret the law right. They’re abrogating contracts by not allowing development. There are some people who have really been penalized because of the hole the county has gotten itself into.”
That “hole” is the realization that the county hasn’t been enforcing the Williamson Act properly. Under state law, Williamson property owners receive significant tax breaks – as much as several thousand dollars a year – for maintaining farmland and certain kinds of open space. But over the last 30 years, county planners allowed scores of illegal subdivisions and approved all manner of residential development.
In 2003, the California Department of Conservation audited the county and ordered it to start enforcing the act, but the board of supervisors hasn’t decided how to do that, leaving planners as de facto policy makers. They are now asking people who want to build houses to show proof of a farm enterprise and demonstrate that the house they want to build is “incidental” to that enterprise. Planners have approved 19 building applications in the last 18 months, but only two of 20 applications filed in 2003 and 2004 have been approved.
“I think we generally do agree that the planning department has overreacted in the opposite direction,” said Aytch Roberts, a Morgan Hill Realtor and chairman of the rural forum of the California Association of Realtors.
“They obviously had their hand slapped for not administering the Williamson Act properly, but I don’t feel it’s reasonable to penalize landowners. I don’t feel it’s reasonable to tell people they can’t live on their property.”
Jay Jacobson is trying to build a 4,300 square-foot home on 147 acres of grazing land on Uvas Road. He said the planning office told him they wouldn’t issue building permits unless he could demonstrate an annual income of $10,000 from the land.
“I have come to realize that they did not have the authority to make this statement,” Jacobson said. “No where in our recorded contract or in the (Williamson Act) does it say that the planning department, the agriculture commissioner or even the board of supervisors can modify an existing contract.”
The $10,000 figure is not part of the law. It was adopted by the county as a guideline on the advice of Agriculture Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove. Prospective home builders are saying that office has set 2,500 square-feet as the maximum size for a new house. That figure comes from AB 1492, the law raising Williamson penalties.
Interim Planning Director Mike Lopez said last week that his staff is simply trying to apply the law correctly and equitably.
“What we are doing is looking to see if a property is under Williamson, and if it is we’re applying the appropriate rules,” Lopez said. We ask people, what are you doing out there? How do you comply with the commercial agriculture provision?”
Lopez said he understands why landowners are frustrated at being denied building permits that the county freely handed out in the past, but now that the county is on notice to clean up the act, it must enforce the law, whether that means nixing building plans or ultimately evicting people whose land doesn’t meet act requirements.
“You address things as they face you,” he said. “If you come in, we’ll look at yours. But if your neighbor doesn’t come in, we wont look at that one. You don’t go out and survey the people who don’t come in.”
County officials are now considering whether to non-renew the contracts for parcels that don’t meet the act’s minimum size requirements of 10 acres for fertile ag land, and 40 acres for what’s known as non-prime land. Although they will lose their tax break, many landowners say they want out of the act. But if the county non-renews their contracts, they’ll have to wait 10 years to build. Canceling a contract brings a hefty fine. What they want is an amnesty.
“There should be an amnesty,” Roberts said. “Most of these people are in this position through no fault of their own. They had no idea they were expected to produce crops. I think people would be ecstatic if you told them they could be out of the Williamson Act tomorrow. The only people who wouldn’t be are those who didn’t plan to build, but then they’d only be paying (in taxes) what they should have been paying all along.”
An amnesty, however, seems far-fetched. Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who authored AB 1492, has said that legislation is unlikely because it would set a dangerous precedent. And the one time it’s been tried, state courts said it was illegal.
Matt King covers Santa Clara County for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7240 or mk***@gi************.com.
