Extensive pastures and a long-running dairy on the 772-acre Cypress Lane Ranch will be protected from development following a deal brokered between landowners, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and state and federal agencies.

MALT announced it paid $2.5 million for development rights to the ranch along Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources and Conservation Service and state Department of Conservation's farmland conservancy program each providing $831,667 grants for the project. Others funds were raised from MALT members and supporters.

"Protecting the land so this productive dairy can continue operation is an example of how MALT works with ranching families to find a conservation alternative to the sale or development of the land," said MALT Executive Director Robert Berner.

Land rights were sold to MALT through a corporation run by the Spaletta family, which has owned the ranch since 1932. Charles Spaletta and his son, Tony, live on the land and run a Holstein dairy cow operation.

In assuming development rights to the land, MALT has ensured it will only be used for agriculture and cannot be subdivided.

"We purchase the development rights and then we extinguish them," said Elisabeth Ptak, the trust's associate director.

The property, situated just outside both Novato and Petaluma, becomes the latest in a series of protected patches of farmland in the region. Similar MALT conservation easements protect a total of

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41,500 acres on 64 family farms and ranches.

Contact Jim Staats via e-mail at jstaats@marinij.com