Thirty years. 60,000 acres! These acres of fields, farms and forests protected by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) have made an amazing difference in how San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have developed — or rather, not developed — over the last 30 years.
Thanks to the efforts of POST and its companion government agency, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD), almost 80,000 acres of land along San Francisco Bay, in the mountains, and toward the Coast are protected for natural landscape with limited use for farming, ranching and recreation. POST holds 10,000-plus of these acres in conservation easements and restrictions on private lands held for agriculture or other conservation uses.
From Bair Island on the Bay, to Windy Hill in the mountains, to Pigeon Point on the Coast, POST purchases have blocked thousands of homes that were once planned. Daly City and San Francisco have not sprawled south; the Bayside cities of San Mateo and northern Santa Clara counties remain contained, largely because POST and MROSD have purchased and protected open space lands surrounding them.
“POST has kept the Peninsula open,” says founding Chairman Ward Paine of Portola Valley. “Without POST, the Peninsula would have ended up like the Santa Monica Hills, all full of homes.”
POST’s most ambitious effort so far, to “Protect the Endangered Coast,” ended triumphantly in 2005 after raising more than $200 million to protect 20,000 acres of one of the world’s great coastlines. Already it has secured some 17,000 acres, with more in the pipeline. “We’re just about there,” says Karie Thomson of Woodside, who led the coast campaign.
Ms. Thomson now chairs POST’s board of directors. “We’re the most successful land trust in the country,” she adds enthusiastically. “In terms of numbers of acres and amount of money, we’re one of the most efficient and ambitious.”
POST will be celebrating its first 30 years, Earth Day, and a new green headquarters in downtown Palo Alto on Friday, April 20. It plans an open house from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at 222 High St.
After almost 30 years at 3000 Sand Hill Road, the venture capital center in Menlo Park, the land trust needed cheaper, larger quarters closer to transportation. At just the right time, the Foundation for Global Community left its offices in a former auto-body shop that had already been remodeled and provided with a solar-paneled roof. POST bought the building and did another level of green remodeling.
“Reduce, re-use, recycle, that’s been our whole approach from the beginning,” says POST President Audrey Rust on a tour of the building that still has a new-car smell. Recycled carpets, reject tiles from an environmentally regulated quarry in Tennessee, paint without nasty compounds, carpet and fabric made out of recycled plastic bottles. Etcetera. Ms. Rust bubbles with enthusiasm for the new building with its mezzanine and sunny meeting rooms.
The building even has showers to encourage the staff, which is up to 24 people, to exercise. “Eighty-five percent of our employees are biking, walking and taking the train,” Ms. Rust says. “We bought Caltrain passes for everyone.”
In fact, Ms. Rust herself walks to work twice a week from the far side of Atherton. “It’s fun to walk through neighborhoods and look at everyone’s gardens,” she says.
Why POST?
POST was an outgrowth of the first government agency established to preserve land as a greenbelt for the Peninsula. Founded in 1972 by a public vote, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District now owns more than 55,000 acres of open land in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties; close to 12,000 of those acres were first obtained by POST, and sold to the district.It was Herb Grench, the first general manager of MROSD, who realized that a government agency was too constrained by regulations and open meeting laws to move flexibly in the real estate market. “He and the board decided a government agency could not deal with private landowners as well as a private entity,” Mr. Paine explains. “And he was right.”
Mr. Paine assembled a high-octane board of Silicon Valley heavyweights to direct the new private land trust. Original members included Mel Lane, Bob Augsburger, Tom Ford, Rosemary Young and Sheldon Breiner.
Mr. Augsburger, a recently retired vice president of Stanford, became the first executive director; he served for 10 years. “Those were the prime 10 years of my life,” he says in an interview at The Sequoias in Portola Valley. “We started with $20,000 and ended where they are now. It’s incredible.”
The gift of landmark Windy Hill to POST by Corte Madera Associates launched the fledgling land trust. “POST could work with multiple owners with multiple motives,” Mr. Paine says. “It took a private entity to work the deal through.”
Later, POST sold Windy Hill to MROSD for half its market value, and used the money for more purchases.
And Windy Hill has become an icon for both POST and MROSD. Thousands of people hike and bike to one of the Peninsula’s great view summits, across land once planned for houses.
POST has been pursuing the same format ever since. “Our goal is to transfer land to appropriate end users, either government agencies or farmers,” says Ms. Rust. “Our broad mission is to give permanent protection to the beauty, character, and diversity of the Peninsula landscape for people now and in the future.”
Growing the dream
Mr. Augsburger spent much of his time with POST building relationships with landowners that have borne fruit in some of POST’s later acquisitions. He remembers drinking Scotch with Herman Phleger; the Phleger property — the eastern hillside rising to Skyline from Canada Road across from Edgewood Road — is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.“We were selling the concept of privately protecting land,” Mr. Augsburger says.
Recognizing the importance of the coast, POST hired John Wade, who knew all the lands and landowners on the Coastside, to help work with them. “We decided the only way to save the coast was to help the farmers,” Mr. Augsburger says. “And we started to contact the wealthy absentee landlords.”
During this period, POST also began evolving beyond partnerships with just MROSD. As it worked with landowners, it began to deal with other government agencies that might take over lands or fund projects. POST has since turned over lands it bought to cities and counties, as well as the Coastal Conservancy and state and federal governments.
The first big break — and huge fundraising challenge — came when the Cowell family put their 1,270-acre ranch, just south of Half Moon Bay, on the market to raise money for the nonprofit Cowell Foundation. With two miles of gorgeous beach and large acres of farmland on both sides of Highway 1, the ranch was a huge temptation to POST, in part to slow the relentless advance of Half Moon Bay down the coast.
After long, complex negotiations, the foundation offered an option to POST that involved raising $2 million in nine months. Mr. Augsburger retired; POST hired Audrey Rust, a proven fundraiser. In a real cliffhanger, they topped $2 million at 5:24 p.m. on Aug. 31, 1987, the day the option was set to expire.
Now the public can enjoy the Cowell trail and beaches at a state park, while almost 1,200 acres have been sold back to farmers who are growing row crops and grazing cattle. “We protect 60 percent of the row-crop farmland in San Mateo County,” says Ms. Rust.
The Audrey era
The Cowell Ranch is just the first of several major projects that POST has completed since Ms. Rust arrived Jan. 1, 1987. Among POST’s other accomplishments, just in San Mateo County:• The 1,252-acre Phleger Estate just north of Woodside is a national park.
• Bair Island, 1,623 acres of diked marsh and wetland off the end of Whipple Avenue in Redwood City, is now being restored to tidal action as part of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
• Rancho Corral de Tierra, 4,262 acres north of Half Moon Bay, once planned for massive subdivisions, is now owned by POST, and waiting for congressional funding to become part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
• Whaler’s Cove, three ocean-front acres just south of the Pigeon Point Light House, already had a motel on it when POST bought it, tore down the building, and built a viewing area. It is now a state park.
• The 3,681-acre Driscoll Ranch near La Honda was sold to MROSD last December to remain as an active cattle ranch along with some public recreation.
What is the secret?
Ms. Rust gives three: POST can work confidentially with private landowners so they are comfortable. POST can move quickly. And POST can raise, leverage, and assemble funds from many sources, ranging from private donors, to federal, state and foundation grants.
“Our work has been strategic and will continue to be,” Ms. Rust says in an interview in her bright new office.
Ms. Rust explains POST’s priorities in buying land: lands that are adjacent to lands that are already protected; lands with high resource value; big properties where size matters; lands with potential for trails and low-intensity recreation; and agricultural land. “We help preserve family farms and keep the land in production,” she says.
Ms. Rust gets high marks from the people who work with her. “Audrey has been at minimum inspirational,” says Mr. Paine. “She has kept the aggressive, entrepreneurial spirit going as POST evolved from a start-up to an institution. We made that transition, and it’s very important.”
A longtime venture capitalist, Mr. Paine stresses the importance of risk. “POST has always been a risk-taker” — from $20 million for Cowell to $200 million for the coast, he says. “The secret of success in the future will be to continue to do that.”
The next 30 years
Do we still need POST? Is there anything left for it to do?“We have as much to do in the next 30 years as in the last 30,” Ms. Rust replies.
“Absolutely,” says Ms. Thomson, who is bringing the energy she used to lead the campaign to raise $200 million for the coast to her new position chairing POST’s board of directors.
Ms. Thomson wants POST to acquire more corridors that will link existing open space preserves, both as habitat for animals and trails for people. “People put up fences, and then wildlife can’t get through,” she says.
POST also plans to extend its land protection southward into Santa Cruz and southern Santa Clara counties, Ms. Thomson says. “We’ll be looking at partnerships with existing organizations such as Sempervirens Fund.”
POST will continue seeking to pursue conservation easements that can keep land in productive agriculture and ranching, rather than being sold for development. “We own conservation easements on 18 properties,” Ms. Thomson says.
As POST holds more conservation easements, it must monitor them to make sure the owners continue to meet the terms of the easement, Ms. Thomson notes. And that responsibility is pushing POST to emphasize stewardship of the lands it owns, as well as lands under easements. “We have 120 volunteers who monitor easements and remove invasive species,” she says.
Ms. Rust warns that the open lands that people think are saved may not be. Bolsa Point Ranches, near Pigeon Point, for example, would have allowed 51 homes — before POST bought it.
Ms. Rust also reflects on new challenges, like getting permanent protection for coastal watersheds on which so many people depend for drinking water. “That’s a lot different from Windy Hill,” she says.
Another challenge is to bring along the next generation, and involve young people in the movement, Ms. Rust says. If you want to protect land and resources permanently, “the only way to do it is to assure that people continue to care.
“We have an obligation to protect one of the world’s most precious places.”
Celebration
POST will hold an “Open Doors to Open Space” celebration on Friday, April 20, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at its new green headquarters at 222 High St. in Palo Alto.Festivities will include food, music, fun for the kids, and more. To RSVP, call 854-7696.
For more information on POST and its programs, go to openspacetrust.org.
For information on the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, call 691-1200; or go to openspace.org.
