What the city bought
On March 10, 2026, the Laguna Beach City Council approved a three-year contract with California Grazing Company for an amount not to exceed $748,029, finalizing the agreement on March 20. The deal covers goat grazing across 10 fuel modification zones citywide — roughly 285 acres — as part of the city's ongoing vegetation management program.
Multi-year public contracts like this one are useful benchmarks for other municipalities and HOAs budgeting a grazing program: at this scale, the deal works out to under $900 per acre per year across the full three-year term, though actual per-acre cost varies with terrain, access, and how many passes a zone needs.
Why multi-year, multi-zone contracts make sense
Laguna Beach's canyon topography means fuel regrows every year regardless of how thoroughly a zone was cleared the season before — the same dynamic that drives most California grazing programs toward standing, multi-year agreements rather than one-off jobs. Locking in a term contract lets a city plan the work around its fire-season calendar instead of re-bidding annually, and gives the grazing operator the volume certainty to commit herd capacity well in advance.
It's the same logic behind Rent A Goat's own recurring seasonal programs for HOAs, ranches, and public agencies — see our <a href="/resources/multi-year-grazing-contracts-ranches/">guide to multi-year grazing contracts</a> for how to structure one.