Special Notice / Hearing: None__
Vote Required: Majority
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Steve Monowitz, Director of Planning and Building
Subject: Contribution to conservation easement for property at 2310 Pescadero Creek Road, Pescadero
RECOMMENDATION:
title
Adopt a resolution authorizing an agreement with Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) in which the County will contribute $405,000 toward POST’s purchase of an agricultural conservation easement to permanently protect the Butano Front Field property, located at 2310 Pescadero Creek Road in Pescadero.
body
BACKGROUND:
Fire Station 59, located at 1200 Pescadero Creek Road in Pescadero, serves the Town of Pescadero and the greater South Coast. The station is located in a floodplain and regularly experiences flooding from Butano Creek, and as a result, has degraded conditions, including mold and plumbing backups inside the station. Seasonal flooding across Pescadero Creek Road isolates the station from the center of the Town of Pescadero, potentially delaying the Fire Department’s response times to incidents occurring to the east of Butano Creek.
The County plans to build a replacement Fire Station 59 next to Pescadero Middle/High School, located at 350-360 Butano Cutoff, on property owned by the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District (“District”). The County entered into a ground lease with the District in 2023 to build the new fire station on 1.75 acres of the school site.
The District’s site contains prime agricultural soils, including on the portion of the site on which the new fire station will be built. The California Coastal Commission requires that the County mitigate for the conversion of these soils by preserving prime agricultural soils nearby on a 2:1 basis, i.e. at least 3.5 acres. This mitigation measure was included in the project’s Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration, certified by the Board of Supervisors in 2022, and in its Coastal Development Permit, approved by the Planning Commission in 2024. To satisfy the mitigation requirements, the County proposes to contribute to an agricultural conservation easement to permanently protect prime agricultural soils for agricultural use.
Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) was founded in 1977 with a mission to protect open space throughout the San Francisco Peninsula, including farms and ranches in San Mateo County. Although its mission has been successful, institutional and public funding opportunities for agricultural land protection have been very limited, providing less than 30 percent of the funds raised as part of POST’s Farmland Futures Initiative. Ordinarily, land protection efforts depend upon grants from public agencies and foundations to provide more than half of the funding. Since the launch of the Farmland Futures Initiative, POST has protected 12 farms on the San Mateo County coast (totaling over 1,500 acres) through a mix of fee simple and conservation easement acquisitions at a total purchase price of $32.3 million. Financial support from POST’s public agency partners, including the County, is critical to continuing the protection of San Mateo County’s agricultural heritage.
In 2012, POST acquired the 26.6-acre farm property known as Butano Front Field (APN 086-080-080) as part of a larger acquisition of the 903-acre Butano Farms property. The property has significant agricultural, open space, and scenic conservation values. Specifically, over 21 acres of the property contain prime agricultural soil, and the property has been productively farmed and in agricultural operations for over 70 years.
DISCUSSION:
POST intends to sell the farm to the longtime tenant farmer subject to both an agricultural conservation easement (ACE) and a right to purchase at agricultural value (RPAV) that, together, significantly reduce the property value. In addition to ensuring permanent protection and productive use of the farm, the property will become more affordable for farming families to own themselves, supporting long-term viability. The ACE restricts uses of the property to those compatible with agriculture and open space and removes all residential development rights except for farmworker housing. The ACE also requires the farmer to maintain at least 15 acres of prime agricultural soils in active production. In essence, imposing permanent enforceable use restrictions on this property significantly reduces its market value but enables the property to remain a farm and a site for farmworker housing.
To satisfy its mitigation requirements for the Pescadero Fire Station project, the County will contribute $405,000 to POST toward the purchase of the conservation easement, which accounts for 30 percent of POST’s total project costs and exceeds the minimum 3.5 acres required by the mitigation measure. The County’s contribution is a necessary component of the property transfer and ACE, enabling the preservation of 26.6 acres of high-value agricultural land in perpetuity, including 21 acres of prime agricultural soils.
The County Attorney’s Office has reviewed the Agreement as to form.
PERFORMANCE MEASURE:
|
Measure |
Required Mitigation |
Proposed |
|
Acres of prime agricultural soils preserved |
3.5 acres |
21 acres |
COMMUNITY IMPACT:
The Agreement will enable the permanent protection and continued farming of a property with significant agricultural, open space, and scenic conservation value. Further, this Agreement satisfies a mitigation measure for the replacement Pescadero Fire Station project, a project that will strengthen public safety and emergency preparedness in the South Coast.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The contribution to the agricultural conservation easement has been included in the Pescadero Fire Station budget, which is funded by Measure K. There is no additional impact to the General Fund.