COUNTYWIDE : County Urged to Create Land Trust

Ventura County should consider starting a “land trust” that would pay property owners to preserve greenbelts, agricultural areas and other open spaces, Supervisor Maggie Erickson has suggested.

Erickson said she will urge fellow board members Tuesday to take steps toward forming a commission to explore how to pay owners for withholding their land from development.

“At this point I’m not sure how the money would be raised,” she said. “One source that comes to mind is the California Coastal Conservancy,” a state agency.

Under Erickson’s proposal, county planners would designate properties that are worth preserving as greenbelts and other open spaces.

“The planners might decide that a particular greenbelt is so valuable they’re willing to pay to preserve it,” she said.

Then the property owners would be compensated for not developing the land, Erickson said. Erickson said the idea is an offshoot of the Beyond the Year 2000 Advisory Committee, whose status report will be submitted to the supervisors Tuesday. Erickson was a member of that panel.

“The Year 2000 Committee felt open spaces were one of the most important issues facing the county,” the supervisor said. “Land trusts have solved such problems elsewhere in the country. Perhaps it could be done here.”

Erickson suggested that the committee have no more than 12 to 15 members. She said the Year 2000 panel, which had more than 30 members, was too large.

Erickson said she will ask county planners to report on the feasibility of her plan in September.