SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – One of the largest land conservation deals in California history became final Friday when the state and two private groups closed escrow on a $95 million agreement to preserve the nearly pristine stretch of coastal rangeland that surrounds Hearst Castle.

Nearly all the 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch about 200 miles north of Los Angeles will remain undeveloped, while 13 miles of coastline that has been privately held for generations will transfer to the state for public access, according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office.

“The landscape and the coastline will remain pristine,” said Nita Vail, executive director of California Rangeland Trust, one of two conservation groups that helped secure the deal.

The ranch, purchased in 1865 by the father of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, is the largest privately owned working cattle ranch remaining on the California coast, according to the American Land Conservancy, the other conservation group involved. It’s where Hearst built the unfinished dream home, Hearst Castle, that his heirs gave to the state in 1958 and is now a state park.

The state paid the Hearst Corp. $80 million in cash and $15 million in tax credits. In exchange, Hearst gave the state 13 miles of beaches and agreed to ban development on nearly all the ranch; it retains the right to build a 100-room inn, 27 homes and 15 employee housing units, and can use 3,600 acres for orchards, vineyards and row crops.

“With this agreement, we have demonstrated what can be done when people are committed to the land and the resources here at the ranch,” Hearst’s great-grandson, Stephen T. Hearst, said in a statement.

The difference between the fair market price of the property, which the governor’s office said was $230 million, and the amount agreed upon in the deal was counted as a charitable donation to the state by Hearst.

Critics say the state paid too much.

“We were very disappointed that the deal was made because we thought it was a raw deal for the public,” said Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission, which regulates coastal development.

Douglas said the deal lacks mechanisms to enforce limits on ranch land development, and that it does not greatly improve public access to the coast because of use restrictions.

“It’s an opportunity lost, and it’s an opportunity gained,” Douglas said. “We just have to be vigilant now over the next many years to make sure the deal that the public was promised is in fact delivered.”

AP-ES-02-18-05 2112EST

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