Marin supervisors to consider sale to land trust of McDowell Ranch

By Katy St. Clair | Bay Town News Foundation

County supervisors throughout California are often charged with balancing the preservation of pristine land with improvement, but possibly none extra so than Marin County, which has some of the most pricey true estate in the Golden Point out.

On Tuesday, Marin County supervisors will look at enabling the Marin Agricultural Land Have confidence in (MALT) to order the 723-acre McDowell Ranch situated east of Tomales.

Resources to obtain the home through MALT would arrive from Evaluate A, a 2012 gross sales tax approved by voters. Marin County Parks officials explained 20 p.c of the dollars produced from the tax is mandated to go to county farmland that is at danger of being produced.

McDowell Ranch is principally managed as an organic grass-fed beef operation, but the overall parcel also is made up of “essential habitat,” in accordance to the parks office 66 p.c of it is categorized as crucial habitat by the Bay Location Conservation Lands Community.

It also contains the Stemple Creek watershed, which is the primary tributary of Estero de San Antonio, regarded as by the California Office of Fish and Activity as “one of the most considerable habitats in the point out,” according to the parks department.

If authorised by the Board of Supervisors, $1.8 million from Measure A funds will go to the land belief in get to purchase the residence.

If recent protections are any indicator, the supervisors will approve the cash for MALT, which the parks office is recommending. In mid-June, another land have faith in in Marin County – the Rely on for General public Land (TPL) – entered into an settlement with the owners of Tiburon’s Easton Position, a gorgeous 110-acre assets with sweeping sights of San Pablo and San Francisco bays.