Hoping to revive wildlife and protect farming in part of the Bay Space that has seen rising improvement strain in recent times, a Palo Alto environmental group introduced Monday that it has accomplished the acquisition of 668 acres of farmland alongside the border of Santa Clara and San Benito counties for $7.8 million.
The three contiguous properties are positioned on the east facet of Freeway 101 about 3 miles south of Gilroy alongside the Pajaro River.
The Peninsula Open House Belief, the non-profit group that purchased the farms from keen sellers, mentioned it plans to revive areas alongside the river for birds, fish and different wildlife, whereas persevering with to lease a lot of the acreage for farming.
Since 1977, the belief, which has been funded through the years by massive Silicon Valley donors just like the Packard, Hewlett and Moore foundations and different rich Bay Space benefactors, has preserved 93,000 acres of open area — an space 3 times the scale of the town of San Francisco — principally in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
Though a few of the lands it has preserved have turn into parks and open area preserves on the San Mateo County coast and within the Skyline-Summit space, the group is more and more shopping for farms and ranches in and round southern Santa Clara County. These embrace properties in Coyote Valley south of San Jose, and bigger areas, like components of Sargent Ranch alongside Freeway 101 south of Gilroy. The purpose is to maintain properties on Silicon Valley’s southern edges as working agricultural land.
“There’s a lot of development pressure along the 101 corridor from Santa Clara County to San Benito County,” mentioned Marian Vernon, wildlife linkages program supervisor with the Peninsula Open House Belief.
“Our concern is that increased development there could make it more difficult for animals to move from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Diablo Range. We want to retain the connection. Preserving undeveloped open space for both agriculture and wildlife habitat is super valuable.”
The Peninsula Open House Belief, an environmental group based mostly in Palo Alto, introduced Monday Oct. 6, 2025 that it has bought three farms totaling 668 acres for $7.8 million about three miles south of Gilroy alongside the Pajaro River close to the Santa Clara-San Benito county line. (Picture: Peninsula Open House Belief)
The three adjoining properties are the 185-acre Bloomfield South Farm, positioned in Santa Clara County, which the belief bought for $2.4 million; the 318-acre Ojeda Ranch, in San Benito County, which the belief bought for $4.7 million; and the 165-acre Gonzales Ranch, which straddles the border of each counties, and the belief bought for $665,000.
All of the funding got here from the belief’s donors, Vernon mentioned.
The primary two properties had been bought from farming households. The third was bought from the Nature Conservancy, one other conservation group that purchased it from farmers in 2012, restored a 130-foot buffer alongside the river for wildlife, and rented the remainder to a rancher who grazes the property with beef cattle.
Tomatoes and hay presently develop on the Ojeda Ranch. On the Bloomfield South Farm, celery, beets, snap peas, cilantro, and dill are grown.
Kathy Fehlman, whose household owned Ojeda Ranch for 30 years, mentioned she is happy it is going to proceed as open area, wildlife habitat and agriculture.
“It’s an enduring legacy that is a really great outcome for everyone,” she mentioned.
Vernon mentioned the belief will work for the subsequent a number of years to develop restoration plans for the properties to boost wetlands, encourage timber and different vegetation, and make the panorama extra enticing for wildlife, whereas additionally sustaining rental agreements with farmers presently working the properties.
Throughout moist winters, the Pajaro River floods ceaselessly — each close to its headwaters within the space the place the properties had been bought and farther downstream close to Watsonville, the place the newest flood in March 2023 displaced practically 3,000 individuals, and brought on harm to 273 houses and greater than 600 different buildings, together with lecture rooms at Pajaro Center Faculty.
“This area forms a seasonal lake in wet winters,” Vernon mentioned of the three farms the belief bought. “The water sits there in the flood plain. If it was paved over with concrete it would send that water downstream and exacerbate the flooding in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.”
The world is also populated with appreciable wildlife, she added, together with coyotes, foxes, bobcats and different animals, together with the occasional steelhead trout.
“Every time I go out there I see northern harriers,” she mentioned. “There are kestrels, barn owls, red-winged blackbirds. Red-tailed hawks. It can be very wet and green out there. In the winter sometimes there are ducks.”
Discovering a steadiness between improvement, farming and wildlife preservation has turn into an more and more high-profile problem within the southern Santa Clara-northern San Benito County space in recent times.
Final November, voters in San Benito County, a principally rural space the place cities like Hollister and San Juan Bautista have gotten bed room communities for Silicon Valley commuters, authorised Measure A, a slow-growth measure geared toward curbing Silicon Valley sprawl.
Below Measure A, approval by San Benito County voters is now required earlier than land zoned for farms or ranches there will be developed. It was endorsed by Save Mount Diablo, Inexperienced Foothills and different environmental teams, and opposed by the San Benito County Farm Bureau, builders and a few labor unions.
In the meantime, in June, the Peninsula Open House Belief spent $25.1 million to purchase 2,467 acres of Sargent Ranch, an unlimited 6,500-acre property south of Gilroy the place the homeowners, Sargent Ranch Companions LLC, based mostly in San Diego, had proposed to construct a gravel quarry, sparking a protracted land use battle. Final October, the belief additionally spent $15.6 million to buy one other 1,340 acres of the ranch from the investor group. It now owns practically two-thirds of your complete property and is in discussions about the way forward for the remainder.
The Peninsula Open House Belief, an environmental group based mostly in Palo Alto, introduced Monday Oct. 6, 2025 that it has bought three farms totaling 668 acres for $7.8 million about three miles south of Gilroy alongside the Pajaro River close to the Santa Clara-San Benito county line. (Picture: Peninsula Open House Belief)
