This polygon shapefile depicts boundaries of Williamson Act Parcels for ranches in the unincorporated areas of the County of Humboldt, California. The California Land Conservation Act, better known as the Williamson Act, has been the California’s agricultural land protection program since its enactment in1965. The Williamson Act preserves agricultural and open space lands through property tax incentives and voluntary restrictive use contracts. Private landowners voluntarily restrict their land to agricultural and compatible open space uses under minimum ten year rolling term contracts with local governments. In return, restricted parcels are assessed for property tax purposes at a rate consistent with their actual use, rather than potential market value. The purpose of the Williamson Act is to preserve the County’s prime soils and intensive high value agricultural operations, and to discourage premature and unnecessary conversion of agricultural land to urban use. The Humboldt County Planning and Building Department is responsible for protecting the public health, safety and welfare via building permit review and inspections consistent with California model codes as well as planning and development review and approval consistent with the county's General Plan. This Department oversees the Advance Planning Division, which is responsible for the Humboldt County's Geographic Information System (GIS) that is utilized by other County Departments; many federal, state and local agencies; and the general public. This coverage can be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analyses of geospatial data. The County of Humboldt makes no guarantee of the quality or completeness of this data. It has not been fully reviewed for accuracy and is intended to be used for planning purposes only. The department assumes no liability or responsibility in the use of this data. While every effort has been made to assure the accuracy of this information, it should be understood that it does not have the force and effect of law, rule, or regulation. In the event of any difference or error, the law will take precedence. The accuracy of map data varies from location to location in the county. While the GIS is useful for planning purposes, it should not be relied upon to determine property, zoning or general plan designation boundaries or be used in any way for project design. All GIS data should be verified before it is materially relied upon for property or project planning. In urban areas the GIS map data maybe inaccurate by as much as 50 feet in any direction. In rural areas the map data may be inaccurate by as much as 400 feet in any direction. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.