The California State Parks Department struck a deal on Jan. 14 to acquire Little Basin, a 535-acre Santa Cruz Mountain property adjacent to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park once used as an employee retreat by Hewlett-Packard. The state purchased the land, appraised at $13 million in 2007, for $6.5 million dollars from the Sempervirens Fund of Los Altos and the Peninsula Open Space Trust, based in Palo Alto.
The deal represents something of an experiment in recession economics. While on numerous occasions in the past land trusts have gifted or sold land at a reduced price to the state for preservation, this is the first time that a piece of land has come equipped with the funding to staff and maintain it.
Along with the property, the state acquires a $1.3 million dollar private endowment ear-marked for maintenance and a contract for staffing that will run through 2017. The agreement was designed to circumvent a declaration by the state Finance Department that it would acquire no new land that also required new rangers or groundskeepers. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
