As part of the Land Conservation Act, or Williamson Act of 1965, such contracts involve the state, county and landowner. Public agencies get to preserve land, and in exchange, the landowner's property tax is assessed without including the speculative value of the land's potential for development.

The contracts are "perpetually renewing" for terms of 10 years. This means cancellation of the contract starts a 10-year period during which the tax break is scaled downward, until eventually the land is no longer restricted. Contracts with deeper tax breaks are available for 20-year periods. Although landowners tend to prefer the 10-year contracts, most land currently protected in this way has been under contract for several decades.

Julie Bulla, now a private consultant, was the county Planning Division's staff person in charge of working with the farmers on the most recent approvals. She explained the program to farmers, helped them complete applications and wrote the staff reports for the county Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.

Many people are familiar with Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, or SOAR, initiatives requiring public votes before development of land zoned for open space or agriculture. The SOAR rules also prevent cities from growing beyond "urban restriction boundaries" without a vote. The initiatives provide some protections for land in eight of the 10 local cities and in unincorporated areas.

Land Conservation Act contracts are different in a few ways. First, SOAR doesn't prohibit development of agricultural land or open space. Under SOAR, not only can landowners win elections allowing rezoning, but also some types of development are allowed without a vote. For example, exemptions allow jails, low-income housing projects, wastewater treatment plants, mines and other projects.

SOAR also lacks a mechanism for reducing the costs to own and operate a farming enterprise. Planting an orchard requires a substantial investment and offers only a long-term payback. Crop prices, foreign competition and the costs of water, transportation, soil amendments and pesticides are all beyond the scope of most local governments. But by reducing property taxes, Williamson Act contracts make farming more viable.

Moreover, because some parcels targeted by the contracts are in "buffer zones" between urban and agricultural land, preservation of these areas can have a multiplier effect. It can prevent the emergence of "use conflicts," such as residents' complaints about noise or dust generated by an adjacent farm. In cases where open space is protected, the contracts can prevent conflicts between people and wildlife. Some contracts preserve a wildlife corridor or other sensitive habitat.

The state provides partial reimbursement to counties participating in the land conservation program, compensating them for lost property tax revenue.

There are currently 984 contracts in the county. For 2007, payments from the state to the county totaled $327,805. More than 126,000 acres in the county are covered by the contracts, including 448 acres added by last month's Board of Supervisors decision.

To finalize one of the contracts last month, an interesting zoning change had to take place. The board approved changing one site from open space, which requires 10-acre minimum parcels, to agricultural exclusive, which requires 40-acre minimums. This reverses the trend of "mansionization" of the countryside, where larger parcels are divided into smaller ones where a mansion is built on each. Instead, keeping larger parcels protects wildlife corridors, makes it more likely land will be farmed, and puts less strain on public services.

The Board of Supervisors is keeping its eye on the environment, supporting tax breaks for the preservation of farmland and open space.

For more information on the contracts, contact county planner Andrea Ozdy at andrea.ozdy@ventura.org.

On the Net:

http://gsa-docushare.countyofventura.org/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-18919/00002287.pdf

— David Goldstein is an environmental resource analyst for the county of Ventura. Representatives of government or nonprofit agencies that want to submit articles on environmental topics for this column should contact Goldstein at 658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org