Board approves multiple Williamson Act contract amendments, reopens contested Breeden parcel for later review

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors held a series of public hearings on requests to amend or reissue separate contracts under the Williamson Act (California Land Conservation Act of 1965), approving multiple parcel-specific contracts and preserving actions while leaving one contested application open for further staff work and a continued hearing.

Bernadette Sisson, associate planner, presented a set of applications by multiple landowners seeking separate Williamson Act contracts for portions of larger existing contracts. Staff's recommendation across these matters was generally to determine each project exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) under the open-space easement/contracts exemption (staff cited CEQA section 15317), to amend existing agricultural preserves to remove the subject property and create a new preserve that is contiguous to the applicant's ownership, rescind the parcel from the existing contract and reissue a single contract for the subject property within the newly established preserve.

For a series of properties (Langford, Root family, Forest House Ranch LLC, Allens, Copers, Silvas, Johnson, Custer…