Dolcini ranch sells development rights
Source: Point Reyes Light, by Clark Merrefield
July 17, 2008
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Owners of the Dolcini Ranch closed on a $2.7 million deal with the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) last Saturday to protect their property from future commercial and residential development. Kitty and Doug Dolcini used the money to buy out their five brothers and sisters.
The agricultural conservation easement will eliminate development rights for all future sales and leases on the 582-acre Hicks Valley ranch, where Kitty also runs a small nursery and 25 acres are leased to County Line Harvest for growing organic produce.
"This property, because it's so close to Petaluma, was probably vulnerable to non-agricultural development," said Elisabeth Ptak, associate director of MALT.
The non-profit land trust has closed on five such easements in the past ten months, including one last December on the Poncia Ranch near Tomales. It expects to close on several more near the end of the year, MALT executive director Robert Berner said.
For the Dolcini easement, MALT received a grant of $745,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources and Conservation Service. The rest of the funds came from member contributions. MALT now has easements on 63 properties covering 40,742 acres throughout Marin County.
The Dolcini Ranch easement sale is iconic of the struggle faced by many West Marin ranching families to stay where they have lived for generations. In 1973, seven Dolcini children inherited the ranch from their father, Arnold Dolcini Jr. Each child was given a one-seventh ownership share, but the land was not divided up. Although the ranch supported the families of Arnold Jr. and Arnold Sr., each of the seven siblings had to work other jobs to make ends meet, and the current economic downturn hasn't helped.
"Our economy has just recently had a big drop, but it makes all businesses, all industries, very, very tough," Mike Dolcini said. "Without MALT what you would begin to see would be ranches actually being lost and the values actually going up too much."
While ranches like the Dolcinis' rely on subsidies such as easements simply to exist, West Marin real estate prices continually pose a potentially fatal threat to the family ranch.
"If this property were put on the market, typically the type of person who could afford it would be somebody who wanted a country estate," Kitty Dolcini said. "But it wouldn't be a farmer or a rancher."
Many of the Dolcini children have a deep emotional attachment to the ranch. Dolcini family patriarch Peter Dolcini bought the land from the Pacheco family at the turn of the century and it has been in the family since, according to Nicaso: The Historic Valley at the Center of Marin by Dewey Livingson.
"I didn't want to be the generation to sell it," Doug said.
Jim Dolcini received no money from the buyout. Instead, he and Doug swapped land on a ranch on Spring Hill, close to the main ranch.
"It wasn't my idea at the start, where I would want to sell out and take that money," Jim said. "We did have another piece of land that I was partners with Doug with and so we just did a swap."
The Dolcinis first broached the idea of an easement sale with MALT 15 years ago, but it is common for deals to take months, even years, Berner said. For the Dolcinis, the internal dynamics of a large family played a role in not getting the development easement sold earlier.
"I just say, 'There's seven of us,' and people go, 'Oh, wow.' You can imagine all the personalities," Kitty said.
In a phone interview on Tuesday, as he was closing on a new home in Penngrove, Steve Dolcini said that while he always intended to be a rancher, he found 20 years ago that it was difficult to run the ranch with six other people. But whatever wounds were exposed before and during the easement sale seem to have healed.
"We're all friendly, we're all happy," Steve said. "Everybody is kind of relieved it's still in the family, that we can go back and visit. It is just kind of good to see that the ranch is still under the Dolcini name and that it didn't get split up."
"A ranch, as far as I'm concerned, is a living, breathing entity," he added. "It's a creature. It's alive. And it's kind of like an old friend."
The development easements the Dolcinis sold to MALT will be apply to all future land deals. If the Dolcinis ever do sell the ranch—and there is no indication they will—the land will remain undeveloped.
"What's the word? Perpetuity. That's the tough one. That's the biggest decision I think I ever made in my life—was to sign that—hoping that future generations won't look back and say, 'Boy, these guys made a mistake,'" Doug said. "I thought that way for a while and then it was like one of my boys said, 'You made it through your life, we'll get by. Don't worry about it.'"
An elegant white house from the late 1800s that has been home to three Dolcini generations grows from the soil at the top of the ranch's unpaved drive off of the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road. Further down is a one-story dairy barn, though major dairy farming was stopped on the ranch five years ago. Across from it is a two-story red bunkhouse where workers used to stay, and where Kitty now lives.
"This ranch was also our teacher," Kitty said. "You saw birth and death. You saw little calves be born then die, or puppies or kittens. You learn common sense." |
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