Land Conservation Act (LCA) Program

The California Land Conservation Act (LCA) Program, also known as the “Williamson Act,” is a voluntary land conservation program adopted by the California Legislature in 1965 and administered by the County of Ventura for the following purposes:

• To help preserve the limited and diminishing supply of agricultural land in the County;
• To encourage production of food, fiber, and ornamental crops and commodities for local, regional, State, national and international markets;
• To discourage premature conversion of agricultural land to nonagricultural land uses; and
• To help preserve and promote commercial agricultural industry and the direct and indirect effects on the countywide and State economy.

How the Program Works

The contract renews automatically annually unless the nonrenewal process is initiated by either party to the contract. Under nonrenewal, the contract term is not renewed annually, but “winds down” over the remaining 9 years of the contract term with taxes incrementally rising to the full, unrestricted, rate. Once the contract expires, the land is no longer restricted to agricultural uses. Cancellation of the contract is also available to the landowner in extremely limited circumstances.
To partially compensate for the loss of property taxes from enrollment in LCA contracts, the State reimburses participating jurisdictions in a “subvention” payment based upon the amount of acreage and type of land under contract.

LCA contract application deadlines are as follows:

New LCA or FSZA contracts or Nonrenewal of a Portion of the Contract must be submitted no later than the first Friday in June to be effective the following calendar year.

Nonrenewal of an Entire Contract must be submitted no later than October 1 (if Saturday or Sunday, then the following Monday) to be effective the following calendar year.

Click here to view information on the tax reduction calculation at the Assessor's office LCA webpage or contact David Whaley at (805) 477-1510.