What’s the payoff for disking Wavecrest?

The recent disking of the Wavecrest property was being done by a farmer who is leasing the land from owners Concar Enterprises in order to grow hay, according to Concar counsel Julie Baigent. The land was used to grow hay before it was targeted for development.

Unirrigated cropland in San Mateo County leases for an average $50 to $100 per acre per year. Vivian Soffa of the US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency in Salinas gave me that estimate based on the USDA’s annual survey of county farm and ranch land values. This is consistent with some information I got from the San Mateo County Farm Bureau.

How much land did Concar lease for farming?  Of Wavecrest’s 206 acres, 108 acres belong to Concar, according to the San Mateo County Assessor’s database. This property runs from Highway 1 to the blufftops.

Concar would stand to make between $5,000 and $10,000 per year from leasing this land to grow hay, assuming all of it could be farmed.