page_title: Big Sur Land Trust
section_title: Gamboa Ranch
hierarchical_section_title: Big Sur Land Trust / Controversial deals / Gamboa Ranch
caption_attribution_description: English: Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur, California, owned by the University of California
context_page_description: The Big Sur Land Trust is a private 501 non-profit located in Monterey, California that has played an instrumental role in preserving land in California's Big Sur and Central Coast regions. The trust was the first to conceive of and use the "conservation buyer" method in 1989 by partnering with government and developers to offer tax benefits as an inducement to sell land at below-market rates. As of 2016, it has protected around 40,000 acres through acquisition and resale to government agencies. It has added conservation easements to another 17,000 acres and has retained ownership of a number of parcels totaling about 4,500 acres.
  The trust was founded in 1978 by a small group of local Big Sur residents who were members of the Big Sur Citizens' Advisory Committee. Four of the residents visited the San Francisco offices of The Trust for Public Land in 1977 where they learned about land-trust finance and management. They decided to form an organization that could promote environmental protection in keeping with the Coast Master Plan and the California Coastal Commission. In February 1978 the community members incorporated The Big Sur Land Trust as a nonprofit California corporation.
context_section_description: In its second land deal in 1979, the trust edged out buyers from Oklahoma for 3,040 acres (1,230 ha) of land known as the Gamboa Ranch near Lucia, California. The owners of the land, 19 New York lawyers, had foreclosed on the $1 million mortgage in 1971 and in early 1979 were seeking to sell the land. Potential buyers from Oklahoma consulted with California Coastal Commissioner Zad Leavy about allowed usage for the land. After receiving his input, they were confident enough about their plan for a retreat-like development to skip a planned 60-day escrow and made a $1.6 million offer to buy the land from the New York attorneys, which they verbally accepted.
  A few days later Commissioner Leavy, without informing the Oklahoma purchasers, switched roles. Acting in his capacity as the attorney for the Big Sur Land Trust, he interrupted the attorneys' meeting during which they were planning to conclude the sale. Leavy offered them $1.2 million in cash and $800,000 in tax credits, the difference between the land's market value and selling price. The tax credit almost completely offset their capital-gains tax payments on the sale.
  The six Oklahoma buyers, who had meanwhile flown to California to tour the property for a second time, were "flabbergasted" to learn their agreement had been turned down for a deal that Coastal Commissioner Leavy had arranged acting as attorney for the trust. They were completely unaware that he was acting in any other capacity than as a public official.
  At the same time the trust was negotiating with the attorneys, they also brought in the father-in-law of board member Nancy Hopkins, Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard. The entire deal was consummated in less than 48 hours. In a complicated legal strategy known as a double-escrow, the trust bought the land, and during the few minutes they owned the land, they applied a highly restrictive conservation easement on the property. The easement significantly reduced the property's value. Packard wanted a piece of open coastal land and was happy with the covenants and restrictions, but he was initially concerned that the proposed contract wasn't legal. He asked Executive Director Zad Leavy to confirm that it was permitted by law.
  Once Packard was reassured, the trust almost instantly sold him 1,500 acres (607 ha). The trust paid the lawyers $1.125 million, and the lawyers also received a $900,000 charitable donation that offset their capital gains in exchange for the loss they took in selling the land to the trust. Referring to the Oklahoma investors, Leavy commented afterward that "We just barely sneaked under the radar, we just barely beat them".
  The trust sold the other half of the land to the University of California who established the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve. Due to a revised exclusion to the real estate listing required by the trust, the realtor who had marketed the property and paid over $6,000 for a full-color brochure among other expenses was not reimbursed.
  The Big Sur Gazette and the local Coast Property Owners Association charged that Leavy had engaged in a conflict of interest by not revealing both his roles as both a Coastal Commission member and the trust's legal adviser. It charged the trust with engaging in deceptive practices. The trust responded that it only works with willing sellers, who choose to place easements on their property which they retained.
caption: Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur, California, owned by the University of California
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