Marin finds $3M for Martha Co. property deal in Tiburon

The Board of Supervisors agreed to increase the payment to the Trust for Public Land to $29.17 million to preserve the scenic ridgetop tract.

Marin County supervisors will pay $3 million more than previously agreed to help purchase a 110-acre Tiburon site known as the Martha Co. property.

Coveted for decades by local open-space activists, the parcel is at the unincorporated tip of the Tiburon Peninsula and features panoramic views of the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito and Mount Tamalpais.

It also provides a refuge for special-status species such as the Marin dwarf flax, serpentine reed grass, Tiburon paintbrush, the Tiburon jewelflower and the California red-legged frog. Residents in the area often hike the private property’s trails, despite no-trespassing signs.

At their meeting on Tuesday, supervisors approved an amendment to a previous contract with the Trust for Public Land (TPL) that increased the purchase price from $26.1 million to $29.17 million. The supervisors also accepted two state grants to help fund the acquisition, one of which TPL has already secured and another that is still pending.

In June 2022, county supervisors approved a deal to pay the trust $26.1 million for the property as part of a complicated financing package to cover the Reed family heirs’ $42.1 million asking price. At that point, the trust had already secured a two-year option to buy the property for that price.

Supervisors agreed to increase the payment to the trust to $29.17 million after Carl Somers, chief of planning and acquisition for Marin County Parks, told them the county’s funding sources turned out to be more flush with cash than expected.

The county created a special tax district with the expectation of raising $18 million to cover the bulk of the $26.1 million it had pledged to pay the trust. The tax district includes Belvedere and the portion of Tiburon east of Trestle Glen Boulevard.

In the Nov. 8, 2022, election, residents living in the tax district voted to tax themselves to help pay for the project. More than 78% of voters said yes to Measure M, which called for the issuance of $23 million in bonds. Measure M created a $335 parcel tax that will increase 2% annually and remain in effect until the bonds are repaid.

The county will generate the rest of the $29.17 million using two sources. First, county supervisors have approved the use of $6 million in Measure A tax revenue. Second, the county plans to use about $2.3 million left over from bond measures used to finance the purchase of the 122 acres that now make up Old St. Hilary’s Preserve.

The boundaries of the new tax district are the same as the two special districts that were created in 1993 and 1997 to pay off the Old St. Hilary’s Preserve bonds. Part of the revenue generated by Measure M will be used to prepay the outstanding Old St. Hilary’s Preserve bonds.

Somers said county staffers were conservative in their estimates regarding how much money the bonds would generate. It is now estimated they will bring in $20.8 million, $2.8 million more than previously forecast.

“We don’t actually know to the exact penny,” Somers said, “but now that we’re less than a month away from their issuance we can be much more accurate.”

Somers said the county also underestimated how much money would be left in the coffers of the two special districts created to pay off the Old St. Hilary’s Preserve bonds, which is available to use. There turned out to be $272,000 more than expected.

As recently as April, a coalition of groups led by the Trust for Public Land asked Tiburon and Belvedere for additional financial support. Tiburon, which had already provided $1 million, pledged to give another $1 million from its general fund if needed. Belvedere agreed to provide $125,000.

The Trust for Public Land has already secured a $1.5 million grant from the state’s Natural Resources Agency and expects to find out later this month whether it will get a $5.5 million grant it requested from the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board. Somers said if the trust gets the full $5.5 million, it will require only a small portion of the second $1 million that Tiburon has pledged.

The wording of Measure M states that the parcel tax will be used to repay the bond and pay costs of vegetation management for the Martha Co. property and Old St. Hilary’s Open Space Preserve. It would appear then that had the supervisors decided not to increase the county’s payment to the trust by $3 million, that the extra money could have been used to defray the county open space district’s future maintenance costs.

Somers, however, said that the county and the trust were actually functioning as equal partners in the bid to raise the entire $42.1 million.

“It’s not like combat, where we’re trying to get the best deal from TPL,” Somers said. “There is one pot, the $42.1 million that we have to raise together.”

Somers said it is fortunate that the bonds are going to produce more revenue than initially expected “because we would not have been able to buy this property otherwise.”

“There is no funding from other sources to fill the gap,” he said.

Somers said the trust collected less money from individual donors than expected.

“One of the things TPL constantly heard in raising money through philanthropy was, ‘So we voted to approve this tax, why do we also need all this philanthropy?’” he said.

“There’s so many ways this project could have failed, but it didn’t,” Jerry Riessen, president of the Tiburon Open Space Committee and a leader in the effort to preserve the site, told supervisors.

“And today we’re on the verge of creating a world-class conservation zone to be enjoyed by all,” Riessen said.