Green Valley Agricultural Conservancy formed to help implement Middle Green Valley Specific Plan

For Immediate Release

Contact: GVAC Board Members:
Sarah Lindemann, 707-386-3300
Anthony Russo, 707-580-0521
Nancy Nelson, 707-746-6587

GREEN VALLEY, June 22, 2010 — A non-profit agricultural conservancy has been formed to support and carry out the vision of the Middle Green Valley Specific Plan, a novel proposal that aims to preserve Green Valley’s agriculture heritage and maintain its rural character while allowing limited residential development that is compatible with surrounding agriculture and open space.

The Green Valley Agricultural Conservancy was born out of months of meetings by a Citizens Advisory Committee, which was appointed by Solano County to create the Middle Green Valley Specific Plan, a special study area established in the county’s voter-approved 2008 General Plan. The county Planning Commission recommended to adopt the Specific Plan and certify the Draft Environmental Impact Report on May 20 and the Solano County Board of Supervisors will take it up on July 27.

The Conservancy has launched a website with information about its goals, history and governance at www.gvagconservancy.org.

The success of the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) was the result of a remarkable collaboration between landowners and neighboring residents, who have not always shared a vision for the future of Green Valley, but met for many months hammering out the details of the Specific Plan.

The Conservancy will oversee the implementation of the goals of the Specific Plan. These goals include monitoring and managing agricultural and open space lands, creating and implementing a fair and effective design review process, supporting and improving agricultural production and providing educational opportunities to foster an appreciation of the natural environment and local food systems.

With a decline in the profitability of farming and encroaching urban development, landowners see the Conservancy as a way to realize some development rights and also continue farming. Neighbors’ interests are served by the assurance that most of the land will remain in agriculture and open space with limited, clustered development. The plan envisions protecting almost 1500 acres of open space and agricultural and grazing lands with 400 homes clustered in three small neighborhoods.

“It is a compromise,” said Sarah Lindemann, president of the newly formed Green Valley Agricultural Conservancy board of directors and a member of the CAC. Her family has been farming and ranching in Green Valley for 150 years, and under the plan that tradition will continue. “Landowners wanted to maintain their property rights and have options,” said Lindemann. “Farming in this valley is no longer profitable as it was in years past.”

She is convinced that the GVAC will “accomplish something that is going to be beneficial to everyone. It will protect the scenery and rural character of Green Valley and will also provide assistance to farmers. It will provide education to the public about what farming is all about.”

Nancy Nelson served on the CAC and is a new board member of the GVAC. She is also a Board member of the Green Valley Landowners Association, which represents neighbors to the north of the Specific Plan area. She said the plan satisfies the interests of the landowners while preserving the rural character and agricultural landscape cherished by local residents.

Nelson believes that the plan, along with the associated Conservancy, will ultimately save Green Valley from the relentless pressure of development. “The Conservancy will serve as guardian to the valley, offering long term protection to its cherished natural resources and scenic beauty. The organization will maintain and restore those aspects of Green Valley that are so highly valued by the community. It is quite an admirable undertaking.”

Nelson points out the symbiotic nature of the Specific Plan. “The success of the agricultural and open space elements is largely dependent upon funding generated by the development. With the decline in value of Solano County crops, it is likely that agriculture in the valley would continue to languish without the support of the Green Valley Agricultural Conservancy. It really is a remarkable plan for preserving a special place.”

Conservation easements will allow landowners to transfer development rights to land slated for limited development while placing farmland and open space in permanent agriculture or open space status. Of the 1,900 acres in the Middle Green Valley Specific Plan, 75 percent of the land (1,490 acres) will be permanently set aside for agriculture, grazing and open space.

A transfer tax on the sale and resale of homes will fund the operations of the Conservancy, which will set up an endowment and also seek donations and grants for its ongoing operations.

Anthony Russo has been involved in the process from beginning, including the General Plan, CAC and now as a member of the Conservancy Board. His wife’s family has owned land in Green Valley for 30 years and he has seen the land-use struggle evolve over the past 20 years as farmers struggled to make a living and development pressure mounted. “We knew there had to be some other method of preserving and enhancing the land,” he said. “The old method of developing some areas and conserving some doesn’t work if the land you conserve has no way of supporting itself.”

Russo said the various interests on the CAC realized that they had no choice but to find a compromise. “There was the realization by everybody that Green Valley could not go on like it was. Everyone saw that there was something to lose,” he said. “The two sides started talking to each other and not at each other.”

The result is a plan that makes economic sense and will serve as a model for other places facing the same land-use dilemma. “In this plan, the houses themselves will provide the income to subsidize farming and incentivize landowners to try things they might not otherwise be willing to try,” said Russo. “This can be a model for not only protecting, but enhancing sensitive areas on the fringes of urban or suburban communities that are worth preserving, but would otherwise be threatened with complete development if left to their own devices.”