The Marin Agricultural Land Trust is preparing to purchase its first agricultural easement in more than a year. On Tuesday, the trust secured a $1.8 million influx of public funds to purchase the development rights to the McDowell Ranch, a historic 723-acre property east of Tomales, ensuring the property will never be subdivided and will always be used for agriculture.
The funds come from the Measure A sales tax, the quarter-cent duty designated for parks, open space and farmland that voters renewed last month. The latest grant, approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, was the second largest disbursement of county funds for agricultural easements since Measure A’s inception a decade ago.
“It’s a lovely ranch, and it’s got so many valuable resources,” Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said at Tuesday’s hearing. “This is exactly what this fund is meant for.”
Like many of MALT’s purchases, the $3.6 million easement will be funded half by county dollars, and half from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the trust’s own pot of private donations.
The McDowell Ranch, a cattle grazing operation, is “one of the highest value, most significant, and most vulnerable properties in the county from an agricultural land and conservation perspective,” according to MALT’s application for county funds. “These attributes make the property vulnerable to subdivision into ultra-high-end housing that would destroy irreplaceable open space in Marin.”
Ranch owners Kenneth and Clairette Wilson, who also own the Diamond W Ranch a few miles up the road in Sonoma County, could not be reached for this story. (Mr. Wilson is not the same Ken Wilson who owns the Grandi Building in Point Reyes Station.) The Wilsons are already subject to one agricultural conservation agreement, property records show. In 2014, they renewed a land conservation contract with Marin County under the Williamson Act, meaning the McDowell Ranch must remain agricultural land until at least 2025, with lower associated property taxes.
The borders of the ranch, made up of four parcels that straddle Tomales-Petaluma Road near the Sonoma County border, haven’t changed in at least 150 years. The property has been owned by the related McDowell and Wilson families for much of that time and is surrounded by MALT-protected land. To the east is the 219-acre McIsaac Dairy, which has been MALTed for 30 years. MALT bought the development rights to the 623-acre Rocky Mountain Ranch to the southwest in 2014. The trust is evaluating the Duncan Ranch, immediately to the south, among six other potential conservation easements in the pipeline.
The McDowell Ranch encompasses grassland and forest habitat, as well as roughly a mile and a half of Stemple Creek, a tributary of the Estero de San Antonio that runs across miles of cattle pasture. By designing a creek conservation area management plan with the Wilsons, MALT says, it will help protect the creek’s water quality and wildlife habitat.
MALT first submitted a Measure A funding application for the McDowell Ranch nearly a year ago but updated the application in February after a final appraisal determined the value of the development rights. The trust declined to comment on the easement until the purchase closes.
Measure A passed in the June primary with 75 percent of the vote, the same margin that initiated the tax in 2012. But the county’s revised spending plan reflected shifting public priorities and opposition from critics. Responding to public comments and a survey, Marin County Parks cut the easement budget to half of the 20 percent set aside for agriculture, with the rest going to the Marin Resource Conservation District and a competitive grant program. The new allocation won’t take effect until October.
MALT holds permanent development rights for 86 ranches, more than half of Marin’s agricultural land. Much of the remaining farmland is protected from becoming anything resembling a suburban subdivision through either Williamson Act contracts or agricultural zoning that limits development to one house every 60 acres. MALT’s opponents have argued that the trust has already succeeded in its mission: suburban developers are no longer banging at the doors of West Marin’s ranching families. But the trust still raises the specter of wealthy buyers closing working ranches, and points to the inadequacies of zoning and contractual restrictions.
The Wilsons’ son Morgan lives in a second residence on the property, and MALT says they have a succession plan to keep the business in the family. “The McDowell Ranch is not threatened by imminent sale, nor is it threatened by a non-agricultural buyer at this time,” MALT staff wrote in a report submitted to the county. “However, [the ranch] is in a very desirable location for potential estate buyers because it is close to the coast and town center of Tomales, easily accessible to public roads, and only a short drive to Petaluma.”
Unlike a MALT easement, the Williamson Act contract does not mandate active agricultural production and can be terminated if the landowner files a notice of nonrenewal, MALT pointed out.
A contingent of anti-ranching activists questions MALT’s use of county funds and the stated environmental benefits of its easements, which they consider publicly subsidized entitlements for environmentally harmful animal agriculture. In 2020, the trust came under fire after it failed to disclose an initial property appraisal to the county when applying for Measure A funds for an easement on the Dolcini Ranch. Landowner Sam Dolcini was a MALT board member at the time, and a subsequent North Bay Bohemian/Pacific Sun article found other examples of easements benefiting board members. MALT denied impropriety but revised its conflict-of-interest policy and mounted a public relations campaign.
MALT’s last purchase, a $1.1 million easement on the Leali Ranch owned by Hog Island Oyster Company in 2021, used no county funds. An easement on the Taylor Ranch, formerly known as the Bianchini Ranch and home to Bivalve Dairy, was boosted by the largest-ever Measure A grant in 2018, at over $1.8 million. The latest comparable allocations of Measure A funds for MALT easements were $1.5 million for the Ielmorini Ranch in 2019, about $1.7 toward the J. McIsaac Ranch in 2018 and $1.7 million for the nearly 1,000-acre Evans Nicasio Ranch in 2017.