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Vince Garrod is the third generation of his family to work the land in Saratoga. He hopes the family will continue the tradition in the same location for generations to come.
Photograph by Paul Myers
LandLocked
Preserving the city's only working farm for the future may mean bending rules meant to preserve rural culture
By Oakley Brooks
Photographs by Paul Myers
Before there was a General Plan for governing Saratoga, before there was a city called Saratoga, and even before orchards covered the area, there were Garrods in the West Valley. Around the turn of the century, the family set down in the area to grow and harvest fruit trees.
Five generations--and several operating modes--later, the Garrods and their relatives are still farming. And after other farmers have sold off their land or handed it over to commercial farmers, the Garrod-Cooper estate on Mount Eden Road is thought to be the last major family farm in Saratoga.
The trouble is that the Garrod-Cooper operation may have become so anachronistic that Saratoga no longer has room in its land-use vision for the farm.
The family's plan to cluster three new homes on a section of their property to accommodate the next generation of farming Garrods and Coopers has run up against an element of Saratoga's General Plan designed to curb development in the city and protect its rural character.
That section, adopted in the early 1980s, prevents high-density housing in the hills where the Garrod-Cooper property sits. Another section adopted a decade later--with the blessing of the family--promotes family farms by allowing owners to add dwellings for new family members in accordance with the state Williamson Act.
But in its first evaluation several months ago, city staff concluded that the 1980 hillside policy had precedent and that the family couldn't build the dense housing they said they needed.
The staff has been working closely with family members recently to reconcile their need for more housing with the older low-density section of the General Plan. But they are running up against a community that has far outgrown its agricultural past.
"This is kind of a unique situation," said Peggy O'Laughlin, a San Jose lawyer the Garrods and Coopers have hired to help them process their proposal. "We normally represent developers in land-use issues. I can't think of a case my firm has worked on where we were trying to protect land for future farming."
Saratoga Community Development Director Tom Sullivan, a recent arrival to the city, said he, too, had never dealt with land, like the Garrod-Cooper estate, that is protected by the Williamson Act, which gives tax incentives to keep farms under family operation.
"It is out of the ordinary," Sullivan said.
Photograph by Paul Myers
The Garrod brand is seen at the stables, which evolved as a major element of the family farm business at the family estate on Mount Eden Road in Saratoga.
On a recent gray morning, Vince Garrod stood in his back yard and pointed his cane toward a large stucco house just down the hill from his. "They say our proposal doesn't conform to the neighborhood," said Garrod, a wry smile creeping over his mouth.
The family's plan to put three 2,500 to 3,000 square-foot prefabricated homes on the property drew a negative response from the city a few months back. Staff members remarked that the homes "would not be consistent with the style of the new homes being built in the area," abodes the Garrods and Coopers think are too large and, frankly, decadent.
At 83, Vince Garrod is one of the patriarchs of the clan, and by placing three homes out his back window, he's looking to firmly root the next heads of the family. Two of the homes would go to children of Louise and George Cooper, Garrod's sister and brother-in-law. Both the Cooper children now live away from the farm but are involved with its operations in at least a part-time capacity.
The third home would be for Christina Garrod, Vince's daughter who teaches in Saratoga and lives with her parents and contributes part-time work at the farm.
The Garrods and Coopers are looking to maximize the space they need to stable 150 horses and grow wine grapes by clustering the homes along Mount Eden Road.
The new homes, however, would mean that five houses would stand on a 10-acre plot of Garrod-Cooper land along Mount Eden. Under the hillside plan approved by Saratoga voters in 1980, homes in this particular area should have a maximum density of one house per 20 acres.
To compensate for the dense housing, the city recommended that the family set aside 20 acres of open space per new house somewhere on their property, a solution that the Garrod-Cooper group said might restrict future expansion of winemaking or horse-farming operations.
As Vince Garrod made his way that morning along a row of grapes where the new homes might sit, a patchwork of modern houses and developments dotted the valley below. Some were built before the 1980 hillside plan and most were constructed outside its jurisdiction on Santa Clara County land. The Garrod-Cooper property itself sits outside the city on county land. But because its land is served by Saratoga-based utility lines and sanitation services, the family must clear its development with the city before seeking county approval.
According to Vince, the county has already indicated that the family's proposed homes might be too big for "agricultural purposes."
Turning and pointing his cane at his own weathered two-story ranch house, built in the 1860s, he said, "That probably wouldn't fit into the neighborhood either if it was built today."
Photograph by Paul Myers
The Garrods' vineyards are in the county, while neighboring homes are in the city of Saratoga. The family might be required to adhere to the current fashion in houses when it builds three new homes for family members.
Evolving with the Times
Both Vince Garrod's paternal grandparents and parents, the first and second generations in the family to work the land around Saratoga, lived in his house. Beginning around the turn of the century, the family raised the valley's main crops--prunes and apricots--along with apples, pears, peaches, plums and grapes. Some of the harvest went to local canneries while another chunk headed to local markets.
The Garrods raised fruit into the late 1950s, before that became unprofitable. With three of the third generation, including Vince and Louise, back on the property with their families, the clan ventured into Christmas tree farming and then began boarding horses and offering trail rides and lessons in the early 1960s.
At George Cooper's initiative, the family added extensive vineyards a decade later before opening their own winery in 1991.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Vince got involved with a growing openspace preservation movement in the area, and in 1980 the family sold half of its property--120 acres--at a cut-rate of less than $10,000 per acre to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. The family now takes horse trips on their old land, and the rest of Fremont Older Open Space Preserve through a network of trails connected to the current estate.
"In order to continue the family plan over the years it has been necessary to change the plan due to changing times," Vince wrote in a letter to the city recently.
But the latest plan change fits uncomfortably between two resolutions that marked the city's own evolution.
The Measure A hillside initiative, passed by more than 60 percent of voters in 1980, marked residents' stance against widespread development in Saratoga's northwestern hillsides.
Later, in the early 1990s, the city formed a task force to recommend ways to preserve open space in the county land adjacent to Saratoga that was expected to be annexed by the city. Beyond limiting the density of housing, the task force looked at ways to cluster housing and-- thanks to Vince's son Jan's participation on the task force--methods to promote open space through preservation of agriculture.
"We wanted to protect some open space and still allow for some development up there," Vic Monia, a councilman at the time, said recently.
The resulting report, adopted by the council in 1993 as part of the city's General Plan, also urged the city to protect land registered as part of the Williamson Act.
Passed in 1965 to protect the state's dwindling farmland and open areas, the land conservation law allows landowners to enter into a 10-year contract with local governments guaranteeing that a parcel will stay open or in agricultural use for a period of 10 years. In exchange, owners pay property taxes based on a land's agricultural or recreational use, not the market real estate value. The contract is automatically renewed unless the property owner requests a change in status.
As registered Williamson Act landowners, the Garrod-Cooper group pays significantly lower taxes per acre than neighboring homeowners.
They have no plans to give up the Williamson Act designation and farming altogether. "We'd like to be here for another 100 years," George Cooper said recently.
But as they see it, a crucial decision will be handed down on Jan. 9, when the Saratoga Planning Commission hears the arguments related to the three new homes. The commission will have three options to consider. In addition to the proposal to put 20 acres per house aside as open space, commissioners could alter the city's General Plan to specifically allow the Garrods' and Coopers' new dwellings. Or it could interpret the 1993 recommendations of the open space task force as the fundamental guiding policy--instead of the hillside plan.
O'Laughlin, the family's lawyer, said she's hoping the commission reads the city's policy documents as she does: "The dominant policy throughout is this preservation of open space and the preservation of land in Williamson Act contract."
Community Development Director Sullivan said the city has "been very open-minded" during negotiations with the Garrods and Coopers. City staff will not give its usual preferred alternative to the planning commission, allowing it to weigh the three available options evenly.
O'Laughlin wondered if the final decision could set some precedent for family farms in similar environments in the region: "Maybe this situation will be something that comes up elsewhere," she said.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
