Private lands spur a public fight

San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | March 21, 2004 | Jim Wasserman

[farmfriend]

Private lands spur a public fight

Struggle for turf mounts as state growth surges

By Jim Wasserman
ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 21, 2004

PESCADERO – Tourists Mark and Dawn Kemp of Denver never thought such rural quiet was possible on a Pacific coastline just 20 miles from the hustle of Silicon Valley.

"I can't believe that we aren't seeing hotels and commercial growth scooping all this up," said Mark Kemp.

The two visitors, marveling at miles of uncluttered oceanfront, didn't know about a small, powerful network of nonprofit land trusts, government agencies and foundations that have bought thousands of acres of California's coastline since 2000 to stop growth.

As experts predict the population of California will grow to nearly 50 million within a generation, the state is in the midst of an unparalleled drive to steer its 1,100-mile coast clear of more development. Borrowing from a movement that created more than 250 miles of oceanfront state parks during the past century and tapping portions of $11.1 billion in new state bonds, California preserved nearly 53,000 acres of coast last year, reports the California Coastal Conservancy, a state agency that seeded such projects with $168 million and leveraged $133 million more.

Among the buys were some of the state's biggest and most politically charged deals: $140 million for 193 acres of Ballona Wetlands near Los Angeles International Airport; $135 million for the 2,800-acre Ahmanson Ranch on the Los Angeles-Ventura County line; and $100 million for 16,500 acres of Cargill Salt Pond wetlands on San Francisco Bay.

This year, land trusts have targeted the 128-square-mile oceanfront Hearst Ranch surrounding Hearst Castle in San Luis Obispo County. There, the San Francisco-based American Land Conservancy has promised the Hearst Corp. $80 million in state bond money for preserving its open space for future generations.

"That's the context within which we're doing this work," said Sam Schuchat, director of the state's Oakland-based Coastal Conservancy. "I want to make sure my daughter has the same opportunity to enjoy the outdoors that I have."

Yet behind the lofty intentions are complex negotiations, land speculation, use of state bonds to bail out troubled projects of campaign contributors and charges of overpaying for land with public money. All helped hasten the downfall last year of recalled Gov. Gray Davis, who had received campaign funds from owners of the Ahmanson, Ballona and Cargill properties. The buying spree has also irritated coast farmers who feel they're being pushed off their land for the cause of empty space.

Indeed, for land trusts, it turns out that buying pieces of earth's most expensive and desirable real estate to prevent development typically requires the same fleets of Capitol lobbyists, political savvy and big league money that developers employ.

"The way you do it is buy it," said Audrey Rust, the $220,000-a-year chief of Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which keeps a Menlo Park office amid California's biggest venture capital firms, and aims to preserve two-thirds of San Mateo County's 55-mile coastline. "That's the way you do it in the United States."

California's new binge of coastal land buying comes as the nation's 1970s environmental movement has matured into a rich, formidable force to rival developers who have seen their power ebb amid bruising development fights and polls showing widespread support for open space.

In a phenomenon some have dubbed "Big Green," groups including the Arlington, Va.-based Nature Conservancy and San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land and American Land Conservancy and numerous local land trusts have translated 1970s idealism into hard-nosed business to compete with developers and millionaires seeking "trophy houses."

Collectively, nonprofit trusts raised $27 million to pass Propositions 12, 40 and 50 in 2000 and 2002. The three measures authorized $11.1 billion to buy land for open-space preservation, to restore wetlands and wildlife habitat and to create new urban parks.

Among them, the Peninsula Trust raised $1.1 million for the three campaigns, according to state records, and reaped $41.5 million in return. Rust's group has also coaxed $100 million from private foundations of high tech moguls David Packard and Gordon Moore for its $200 million, 20,000-acre campaign called the nation's largest land conservation effort by a local trust.

In 2000, the Peninsula Trust paid a San Francisco businesswoman $3 million for three acres near the 1872 Pigeon Point lighthouse south of Half Moon Bay. Then it tore down her nearly finished motel, restoring both the oceanfront views and those of 7,000 acres of largely empty Peninsula Trust land east of Highway 1.

"We set out to get enough money to make an impact," said Rust, 59, who grew up romping on a Connecticut coastline with her grandfather and waxes about the "expansiveness" that human beings feel at a continent's edge.

Today, the trust's impact can be seen in homes and hotels that will never exist along the rural San Mateo Coast, on places such as the 4,262-acre Rancho Corral de Tierra, bought for $29 million and the 1,700-acre Bolsa Point Ranches optioned for $29 million. All instead will be managed by a variety of government agencies.

Still, the Peninsula Trust's success has stirred resentment from county farmers, said San Mateo County Farm Bureau Director Jack Olsen.

"What we see happening is POST gets grant money and acquires property and then, within a short time, the property has migrated out of agriculture," Olsen said. "They like to use agriculture as a poster child for what they want to do and what they want to save, but there seems to be a hidden agenda to remove agricultural production from the ground."

Elsewhere on the coast, the Trust for Public Land and Packard Foundation paid Manhattan Beach land speculator Brian Sweeney $43 million in 1998 for the 7,000-acre Coast Dairies farm, north of Santa Cruz, when he threatened to develop it.

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, once accused Sweeney of "environmental terrorism" for buying land, threatening to develop it, then selling to preservationists for a profit. Sweeney, who owns 2,000 acres in the Santa Monica mountains, contributed nearly $100,000 in 2002 to the California Conservation Campaign, which promoted Propositions 40 and 50.

In Monterey County, the Nature Conservancy and Big Sur Land Trust paid cellular phone mogul Craig McCaw $37 million for his 9,000-acre Palo Corona Ranch near Big Sur in 2002. In Santa Barbara County, the Trust for Public Land is trying to raise $20 million for the 135-acre Ellwood Mesa in Goleta, where owners Comstock Homes and Santa Barbara Development Partners proposed 131 homes.

Conservationists bent on preserving the county's Gaviota Coast are also eyeing a 200-acre property where the California Coastal Commission rejected Orange County developer Hadi Makarechian's proposed Dos Pueblos Golf Course. Makarechian's Capital Pacific Holdings contributed $100,000 last year to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign and has sued the state for $35 million. But Schuchat said it's doubtful there will be money for the 200 acres in this round of bond funding.

Yet there will likely be another round. Land trust officials, buoyed by the "renaissance" of state money for land buys, are tentatively discussing a new bond measure, possibly in 2006 or 2008, to buy still more.

"We haven't anywhere come close to buying all the land we need, that's been identified by local government and state and federal agencies," said Reed Holderman, vice president and regional director of the Trust for Public Land.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[zeugma]

I ain't got no problem with these groups spending their OWN money on land. When they force the rest of us to do it for them is where I draw the line.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[international american]

Add me!

[Carry_Okie]

Maggie, do you still have that post I put up about the Coast Dairies ripoff bookmarked (the one with all the hemlock)?

I can't seem to find it, again.

[teeman8r]

it no longer is necessary for these groups to spend their own money to buy ujp the land, they just regulate it out of the realms of developers...

then they prevent private owners from enjoying it the way they want to but to protect it for other peoples children...

fascistic at best...

t

[jeffc]

$140 million for 193 acres of Ballona Wetlands near Los Angeles International Airport

$725K+ per acre? Sounds like alot! Who pays the property taxes on this land? The public?

[farmfriend]

Consider yourself added. If you ever change your mind, this can be a high volume list, just let me know.

[farmfriend]

I can't seem to find it, again.

What would you and SierraWasp do without me? LOL! Your wish is my command!
Water rights fight--farmer regrets selling to an open space trust

[farmfriend]

It is quite literally a protection racket worthy of the mob. Pun intended.

[international american]

I read fast:)

[farmfriend]

I read fast:)

Cool because on this ping list you will get a lot to read!

[Carry_Okie]

What would you and SierraWasp do without me?

Pine in ignorance for want of a searchable archive.

It's an oldie but a goodie.

Well, let's look at some of their (the foundations and the Coast Dairies Partnership) handiwork, shall we? The white stuff you see in the following photo is water hemlock. It is a poisonous weed from the Middle East. The pollen causes birth defects. The quail that eat the fruit don't die, but the bobcats that eat them do. There are thousands of tons of it thanks to the Coastal Conservancy and the Pacific Land Trust.

All images in this post are copyright by Mark Edward Vande Pol. No retransmission reprinting or reuse without written authorization. Please, I want to use these for an article.

Here is what they want to save:

Here is what they are doing to it.
They are "preserving" it.
The highlighted areas are hemlock.
Doesn't it look a little rugged for weeding?

Who's going to go get those weeds now?

And more right above Scott Creek, the principle salmon stream in the area. The clear area is where cattle graze...

And here's what happens when it really gets going.
It's the whole hillside above that building.
The seed lasts at least ten years. Is this an environmental impact?
Where are the air quality authorities?

Let's hear it for our environmental heroes, and their appropriately landscaped sign!

Here is more.

5 posted on 07/29/2002 11:29:50 PM PDT by Carry_Okie

Isn't it pretty?
It's mixed in with tick infested dwarf coyote brush, bush lupines, rare wildflowers, and poison oak.

Who's going to go get those weeds now?

Now here is what the farms do. They are weed buffers that protect nature from the weeds along the State Highway. If farmers got paid for weed control, would they be broke? Would land use be organized differently?

Would this...

...be preferable to this?

or this (the red stuff in the foreground is thistle)...

or this?

Want an alternative?

6

posted on 07/29/2002 11:48:44 PM PDT by Carry_Okie

[FormerLib]

Should public money be used for this? How about we use the leftists rhetoric against them?

Invariably, this causes land and housing prices to increase faster than market forces would otherwise dictate, often forcing people on the low end of the income scale to surrender a greater portion of their income to meet housing expenses.

This discriminates against poor people! Coastal land development is a right!

[sauropod]

""We haven't anywhere come close to buying all the land we need, that's been identified by local government and state and federal agencies," said Reed Holderman, vice president and regional director of the Trust for Public Land."

And therein lies the problem. A corrupt cycle of Conservancies and GodGov.

Big Green = Gang Green.

[Savage Beast]

The real problem is when corrupt politicians and enormously rich "environmentalist charities" extort property from vulnerable and defenseless citizens in order to fulfill their self-serving agenda. Such people have enormous resources to use in extracting property from the vulnerable. When they decide to seize someone's property, they can hire billiant lawyers to devise a strategy. If one idea won't work, they'll think of another. The result is the exploitation of the innocent, the vulnerable, and the defenseless by the powerful.

[Carry_Okie]

How about we use the leftists rhetoric against them?

[sergeantdave]

And when all the land is bought "for the public," and "the public" finds berms and fences on the "public property" with signs reading "No Trespassing" will "the public" feel the shaft up its rearend?

Ah, the joys of Marxist public ownership. I hope "the public" enjoys living in 20 by 20 foot sardine cans in their smart growth eco-fascist concentration camps, while annointed elites cavort on closed-off "public" property.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Big Green = Gang Green