Contra Costa County, once brimming with orchards and ranchlands, is now turning a distinct shade of gray: dotted with cities, highways and encroaching developments.
One of the only mechanisms to slow the growing sprawl is a little-known law that provides tax relief to landowners who commit to keeping their land for open space or agricultural use.
The state law, known as the Williamson Act, passed in 1965 in the face of heavy development across California. It was meant to discourage “premature and unnecessary conversion of open space to urban use,” even as the state grew and modernized.
In Contra Costa, however, the program has essentially been mothballed, with potentially serious consequences for open space in the county, a civil grand jury report found.
“Basically it keeps your property taxes lower so you can produce your product and not go out of business,” said Sue Russo, manager of the Alameda County Farm Bureau–a local nonprofit working to promote the protection of farms, forests and ranches — and the Williamson Act.
Across the state, which has estimated the need for 2.5 million additional housing units, land is going toward housing and developments are appearing in places they never have been before. Contra Costa has doubled in population since 1970, to 1.1 million residents, and in that time, hillsides turned into housing developments.
The Williamson Act offered a sizable incentive to landowners to buck the urbanization trend: a reduction in property taxes of as much as 20% to 75%. With land valuations skyrocketing, property taxes in many cases have grown in hand.
Although it is a state law, administration of the Williamson Act falls to local governments. In Contra Costa, the agency in charge is the Department of Conservation and Development (DCD). The department receives applications for agricultural contracts under the act, which they are then tasked with processing and recommending for approval to the board of supervisors.
The Contra Costa civil grand jury found that, in reality, this hasn’t occurred in years. The last successful Williamson Act contract, also known as an “agricultural contract,” was processed five years ago in 2018.
The grand jury report’s indicated the county failed to respond promptly, or at all, to applicants, despite a lower volume of applications than in other counties. The report also noted that the application fee for an agricultural contract is $2,000.
“We found that the DCD process to review and recommend the approval of agricultural contract applications is lengthy compared to another county,” the civil grand jury wrote in its report, though it did not name the county or counties used for comparison. “This causes delays and the overpayment of property taxes by the applicants while awaiting contract approval.”
Civil grand juries are composed of county residents who serve as local government watchdogs; the county is legally obligated to respond to their recommendations—but not to implement them.
In this case, the grand jury recommended a more streamlined process for approving agricultural contracts since it found “no formal procedure for the evaluation and approval of agricultural contracts in Contra Costa County,” the report read.
Like much of the Bay Area, Contra Costa is a formerly agricultural region that has been heavily developed. In Martinez, 100-year-old lemon trees in people’s backyards are evidence of this history. In 2017, there were still 459 farms in the county, nearly half of which were between 1 and 9 acres. Small farmers are still holding on, but margins are slim. The county lost 24 farms between 2012 and 2017.
Failures to process Williamson Act contracts exacerbates those thin margins. For some landowners, the tax incentives in the law is the difference between preservation and sale.
“Without it, the incentives are gone,” Russo said. “If you’re paying the higher taxes you probably sell it for development.”
A Contra Costa County spokesperson said they do not respond to grand jury reports until the Board of Supervisors has reviewed the report. County officials will be required to respond to the civil grand jury’s recommendations in the coming months.