Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ag Preserve Separations topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board approves separate Williamson Act contracts for multiple parcels
Summary
The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors approved staff recommendations to amend existing agricultural preserves and issue separate Williamson Act contracts for multiple parcels, including applications by Iron Horse Acres, Robert Nielsen, Arabella Murillo, Travis Owens and the Markchio family.
The Board of Supervisors voted to amend multiple agricultural preserves and issue separate Williamson Act contracts for several parcels after staff recommended the actions and determined the projects exempt from CEQA under section 15317.
Bernadette Sisson, associate planner, presented each application. For Iron Horse Acres she described a proposed 521-acre separate contract and recommended the board "determine the project exempt from CEQA pursuant to section 15317, adopt resolutions amending the ag preserve to remove the subject property and create a new 521 acre preserve, rescind the property from the existing contract, and issue a single contract for the subject property within the newly established preserve." The board recorded no public opposition and voted to approve the recommendation.
Sisson made similar staff recommendations for Robert Nielsen (181.6 acres), Arabella Murillo (627.07 acres), Travis Owens (413.45 acres) and a Markchio-family application (476.28 acres). In the Markchio-family matter staff also recommended issuing notices of nonrenewal for three substandard parcels totaling 25.23 acres; the board approved the preserve amendment and the notice-of-nonrenewal recommendation for those substandard parcels.
Board votes on each item were recorded as affirmative by the supervisors present. Where staff noted the subject preserves had parcels under multiple ownerships and were not contiguous, the remedy recommended and adopted was to rescind the subject properties from their old contracts and issue new single-owner contracts covering only the applicant's land.
Each approved action directs staff to prepare resolutions to amend preserves and to reissue single contracts for the approved parcels; staff also recommended the CEQA exemption 15317 (open-space/contract rescind-and-reissue) for these routine contract adjustments.
