Local government: urban agriculture incentive zones.

(1) Existing law, the Williamson Act, authorizes a city or county to enter into 10-year contracts with owners of land devoted to agricultural use, whereby the owners agree to continue using the property for that purpose, and the city or county agrees to value the land accordingly for purposes of property taxation. Existing law authorizes the parties to a Williamson Act contract to mutually agree to rescind a contract under the act in order to simultaneously enter into an open-space easement for a certain period of years. This bill would enact the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act and would authorize, under specified conditions and until January 1, 2019, a city, county, or city and county and a landowner to enter into a contract to enforceably restrict the use of vacant, unimproved, or otherwise blighted lands for small-scale production of agricultural crops and animal husbandry. The bill would require a contract entered into pursuant to these provisions to, among other things, be for a term of no less than 5 years and to enforceably restrict property that is at least 0.10 acres in size. (2) Existing law requires the county assessor to consider, when valuing real property for property taxation purposes, the effect of any enforceable restrictions to which the use of the land may be subjected. Under existing law these restrictions include, but are not limited to, zoning, recorded contracts with governmental agencies, and various other restrictions imposed by governments. This bill would require the county assessor to value property that is enforceably restricted by a contract entered into pursuant to the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act at the rate based on the average per-acre value of irrigated cropland in California, adjusted proportionally to reflect the acreage of the property under contract, as most recently published by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. The bill would also require the State Board of Equalization to post the per-acre land value as published by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the United States Department of Agriculture on its Internet Web site within 30 days of publication, and to provide the rate to county assessors no later than January 1 of each assessment year.