Solar-use easements: suspension of Williamson Act contracts: terms of easement: termination.

Assembly Member Wicks presents a measured shift in California’s Williamson Act framework by directing that eligible agricultural contracts be converted into solar-use easements for the term of the easement, rather than rescinded, and by expanding the scope of land uses that may occur under those easements to include solar energy storage and related facilities. The proposal also requires a community benefits agreement as a condition of entering into a solar-use easement, and it tightens the process by which a parcel is determined eligible for conversion.

Key mechanisms drive how this would operate. The Department of Conservation would determine eligibility upon a landowner’s request, in consultation with the Department of Food and Agriculture and any applicable groundwater sustainability agency or services. Eligibility criteria broaden to include land with significantly reduced agricultural productivity due to soils, severely adverse soil conditions, or insufficient water supplies that limit production, with several additional conditions related to land history, grades, and encumbrances. The department must issue a determination within 120 days of a complete application, and a decision not rejected within that window would be deemed approved. A landowner must provide a substantial information package (soil tests, water analyses, crop/yield data) and a management plan addressing soil management, minimizing adjacent impacts, and restoration at easement termination. If determined eligible, the local government may enter into a solar-use easement, with at least 14 days’ advance written notice to relevant workforce. Easement terms run for not less than 20 years, or at least 10 years if the landowner requests a shorter term, with automatic annual extensions unless a nonrenewal is served; mutual consent termination is permitted, and nonrenewal for annually self-renewing easements requires 90 days’ notice. Restrictions and covenants may include essential-nexus, proportionate mitigation measures, and decommissioning safeguards; the bill eliminates certain beyond-the-easement mitigation and performance-bond guarantees, while authorizing termination provisions if governmental authorizations lapse or if facility boundaries change. The deed must be approved by the governing body, and a community benefits agreement must be negotiated with the city or county, covering specified categories such as local job training, water conservation, land preservation, agricultural innovation, and community improvements, with outreach requirements to adjacent landowners and public notification.

The bill also reconfigures the extinction, renewal, and enforcement framework. A solar-use easement may be extinguished through nonrenewal, termination, mutual consent, or returning the land to its previous Williamson Act contract status; nonrenewal for annually self-renewing easements requires advance notice, and nonrenewal terminates renewal rights for the remainder of the term. During the easement term, land-use approvals that would violate the easement are prohibited, and injunctive relief and removal of violative structures are specified as enforcement tools. Restoration obligations are triggered upon extinguishment, returning the land to its pre-easement conditions, and the conversion mechanism is designed to operate notwithstanding prior notices of nonrenewal. The bill repeals certain existing provisions and adds a new conversion provision, creating a pathway for eligible Williamson Act lands to be governed under the solar-use easement framework for the duration of the easement.

Context and policy setting place AB 1156 within California’s broader climate, land-use, and water management priorities. The findings underscore the state’s decarbonization trajectory, the push for utility-scale solar deployment, groundwater sustainability, and the need to sustain farmland through temporary solar use. The approach envisions local revenue implications from property-tax effects and new taxation of improvements, while signaling an intent to use community benefits agreements to align solar projects with local community interests. The CEQA regime is adjusted to exempt entry into or recordation of a solar-use easement from environmental review, though the underlying solar facilities remain subject to CEQA, with operative sequencing tied to companion measures governing exemptions. The overall design introduces a formal conversion mechanism for Williamson Act lands, a mandated local-community-benefit framework, and interagency coordination on eligibility determinations, all within a structure that preserves other methods for contract termination and local land-use authority.