smart growth: on common ground: winter09

on common groundREALTORS® & Smart Growth

WINTER 2009

Voters Say Yes to Conservation

Farmland Protection

State Governments Take the Lead

land conservation

2 ON COMMON GROUND WINTER 2009

In the eight years we have been publishing On Common Ground, we have reported on the evolution of smart growth and its increased adoption throughout the country. While in the 1990s stopping sprawl and protecting the countryside from development was a prime focus of smart growth efforts, since 2000 smart growth has matured to embrace walkable, mixed-use communities, transit-oriented development, green buildings and energy conservation. This focus on developing better communities that make better use of our resources is an approach that is meeting the needs of the marketplace while also helping us to slow global climate change.

But protecting the undeveloped countryside is still an important part of the smart growth equation. In this issue we turn our attention back to land conservation. At all scales — from establishing city parks to preserving farmland, from addressing sprawl in rural communities to protecting wilderness areas on public lands — providing and preserving open lands are vital to the health of communities and the environment. We highlight the activities of a wide range of parties, including private corporations, nonprofit land trusts, all levels of government, and REALTORS®, who are working together to conserve our land resources for future generations.

Smart Growth:Conserving Our Land

Editor

Joseph R. Molinaro Managing Director, Smart Growth and Housing OpportunityNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 500 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001

For more information on NAR and smart growth, go to www.realtor.org/smartgrowth.

For more information on NAR and Housing Opportunity, go to www.realtor.org/housingopportunity.

On Common Ground is published twice a year by the Community and Political Affairs division of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (NAR), and is distributed free of charge. The publication presents a wide range of views on smart growth issues, with the goal of encouraging a dialogue among REALTORS®, elected officials and other interested citizens. The opinions expressed in On Common Ground are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, its members or affiliate organizations.

Distribution

For more copies of this issue or to be placed on our mailing list for future issues of On Common Ground, please contact Ted Wright, NAR, at (202) 383-1206 or [email protected].


The Smart Growth of Rural Towns 4

by David Goldberg

Voters Say Yes to ConservationHistorically Americans Support Measures that Have a Tangible Result 8

by Gary Fineout

State Government Takes a Lead in Open Space Preservation 12

by Heidi Johnson-Wright

Everybody Loves a ParkGreen Space Is a Premium when Building, Buying or Selling 20

by Brad Broberg

Land Trusts Preserving OurNatural Lands 26

by Steve Wright

The Conservation SynergyPrivate Corporations Are Securing Open Space 36

by Christine Jordan Sexton

A Cherry of a DealFarmers Receive Much Needed Assistance to Protect Their Land 42

by John Van Gieson

Protecting Our Nation’s Wildlands 48

by Judy Newman

The Conservation BoomBetter Conservation Opportunities Emerge from Lower Land Prices 56

by Steve Wright

REALTORS® Take Action Making Smart Growth Happen 64

Winter 2009

On Common Ground thanks the following contributors and organizations for photographs, illustrations and artist renderings reprinted in this issue: Charles W. Barrowclough, Martin County Parks & Recreation Department; Joelle Boros, Perry Rose, LLC; George Cofer, Hill Country Conservancy; Dave Dadurka, The Nature Conservancy; Donald Drysdale, State of California Department of Conservation; Shaun Fenlon, Maryland Department of Natural Resources; Christina Hailman, Friends of Patterson Park; Corean Hamlin, Asheville Board of REALTORS®; Linda Harrell, Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate; Gordon L. Hayward, Peninsula Township Planner; Barak Gale, Washington Wilderness Coalition; Jennifer Jay, Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy; Toni Kellar, the Wilds; Land for Maine’s Future; Kirt Manecke, LandChoices; Kit McGinnis, National Park Trust; Carrie Meek Gallagher, Suffolk County Department of Environment and Energy; Jennifer Morrill, American Farmland Trust; Kenneth E. Murray, California Farmland Conservancy Program; Gary E. Nichols, Park County, Colorado; Carl Palmer, Beartooth Capital Partners; Cynthia W. Satterfield, Tar River Land Conservancy; Heather Saucier, Harris County Flood Control District; Dean Saunders, Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate; Stuart Sirota, TND Planning Group; Clark Stevens, New West Land Company, Inc.; Ron Young, Phoenix Parks Development Division; and U.S. Sugar Corporation.

On Common Ground

3

T H E S M A R T G R OW T H

The rural township of Rhinebeck, N.Y., had gotten the message on Smart Growth. With development creeping up the Hudson River from New York City, 90 miles away, the township, four years ago, embarked on an effort to plan for the inevitable growth in a

way that would prevent it from chewing up the 2,000 acres of unspoiled green buffering the village of Rhine-beck and an unincorporated hamlet on the river.

The concept that emerged would have required most of the expected growth to hug the existing hamlet, al-lowing for mixed use near the center and about 200 small residential lots. The surrounding land meanwhile, would be down-zoned from one house per five acres to one per 20.

“Philosophically, it may have made sense,” says David Anthone, an architect who at the time was chairman of the hamlet of Rhinecliff. “The only trouble was that it was impractical.”

The most immediate challenges to the plan were politi-cal: Residents of the hamlet, part of the nation’s largest historic district and a place that had changed slowly over many generations, reacted in horror that their popula-

tion could double in size “overnight.” Some landowners, meanwhile, complained that their land had been deval-ued by the down-zoning.

Those complaints are the almost inevitable result of ef-forts to grow rural towns by adding contiguous develop-ment and preserving the surrounding countryside, con-tends Randall Arendt, a land planner and author known for advocating conservation design. “You run into the problem of ‘wipeouts and windfalls’,” Arendt says. “The owner whose land gets designated for growth nodes gets an instant windfall, while others see the potential to de-velop their property wiped out.”

For years, these very issues have hampered many rural communities in their efforts to prevent urban sprawl from sucking the vitality of their downtowns, chewing up farmland and undermining the viability of agricul-ture, marring treasured landscapes and chasing wildlife out of their habitat (and often into town). Despite growing concerns around the country, only one state, Oregon, has taken the dramatic step of imposing a state-wide solution, requiring cities to establish urban growth boundaries and designating farm and forest zones that are off-limits to development.

By David Goldberg


Located in Bethel Township, Pa., Garnet Oaks contains 80 homes on 58 acres and preserves 51 percent of the land as open space.

Courtesy of Randall Arendt and LandChoices

OF RURAL TOWNS

In recent years, however, a number of highly motivated communities, as well as developers and property own-ers, around the country have been experimenting with innovative solutions that help towns grow in healthier ways while preserving important lands.

Communities in rural America can be roughly divided into three categories: Those that are holding their own in terms of population and are changing very little; those that are spreading out evenly with zero or nega-tive population growth, hollowing themselves out, in essence; and those that are exploding, in relative terms, because they are within a lengthy commute of a major metro area.

Kent County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, falls into that last category. Development pressures from the Washington-Baltimore region in the last several years have pushed into the pastoral, scenic area, leading the county to adopt growth-management measures. Those measures were put to the test in 2004 when developer Carl Wright obtained an option on 25 acres adjacent to Kennedyville, an unincorporated village of 150 outside of Chestertown, says Stuart Sirota, a new urbanist mas-ter planner hired by the developer to shepherd a devel-opment plan into existence.

“The county’s comprehensive plan called for contiguous development outside of Kennedyville, which was in a priority-growth area,” a state designation that makes an area eligible for infrastructure and other subsidies, Sirota recalls. “But that didn’t mean the community was ready for it.”

Sirota was inspired by the opportunity to expand on the historic pattern and character of the village, rather than create a cookie-cutter subdivision. He recognized, how-ever, that the scale of the change — though relatively small by metropolitan standards — would be alarming to residents. He began by holding a charrette, or design workshop, over three days that was open to the collabo-ration of every one of the community’s 150 residents.

“We did face extreme opposition at first from people who thought this was too much, too fast. They didn’t want to lose the quality of the place they had,” Sirota says. Most recognized, however, that they could not stop all development in their area. The charrette gave them

the opportunity to shape the new neighborhood to ad-dress their desires and concerns.

“We had to learn together at every step about the trade-offs you have to make,” Sirota says. “For example, they wanted to ensure that people who live there could actu-ally buy there. They didn’t want it just to be an exclusive, second-home kind of place. People didn’t want sprawl, but they resisted anything that wasn’t a single-family house. They wanted affordable, but they wanted large houses that were on large lots, because they thought that would ensure stable residents. Townhomes, which are more affordable, to them were an invitation to crime.”

5

Developer Carl Wright hired a new urbanist master planner to develop plans for Kennedyville, Md. After community feedback, the final designincorporated a corner store and duplexes.

The ultimate design, rendered after several iterations of feedback from the community, envisioned a pocket park open to all, a corner shop where the land met the state highway, and plans for “semi-detached” duplexes that looked like a single house.

“When we started we had people yelling at us, and at the end the same people stood up and applauded,” Sirota said. “They thanked us for listening and working with them, even though they didn’t like absolutely everything about what we were planning.”

But the struggles to create a compatible development for the rural area didn’t end there. After the approvals were secured, which took about a year, the developer began working with a national builder, who pushed for higher prices and seemed to misread the market, Sirota said. When that builder pulled out, the developer found a more local builder, who scaled back the prices and be-gan selling homes, even as the market was entering the current slump. “Even though not much is selling in the county, it’s doing fairly well,” Sirota said.

The trouble with planning in rural areas is that most communities have very limited resources, said Kirt Manecke, a former salesman who started a group called Land Choices to advocate for conservation design in his home state of Michigan.

“The people we work with are the nice people who are volunteer planners,” says Manecke. “They are a plumber by day and a planning commissioner by night. We try to help them understand a lot of these issues, because all this stuff is foreign to them.”

Officials often express a desire to preserve their land-scapes and working farms, but then adopt zoning that mandates subdivisions with equal sized lots, or lots that are too large for clustering. Some, of course, have no zoning at all, so adopting land-use regulations often must be the hard-won step one.

To help visual learners, Manecke carries a card show-ing a “cookie-cutter” subdivision — in which all of a given parcel of land is carved into equal-sized lots — along side a conservation subdivision, where homes are grouped in nodes according to topography, leaving most of the land open. “I’ve never had anyone point to the cookie-cutter subdivision and say, ‘That’s where I want to live.’ They always want to pick the conservation subdivision. And the developers are learning that you can build the same number of houses, but save money on the land clearing.”

After finding some success promoting the model around his home of Farmington Hills, Manecke has launched a national campaign dubbed “Supersize My Backyard,” which he hopes will lure more citizens into advocating for design that preserves 50 percent or more of rural lands. He stresses that, in order to save meaningful wild-life habitat, “what we really want to see is linking the contiguous swaths of preserved land.”

“I might be idealistic but I think, gosh, you know, in 50 or 100 years we might not have any of this stuff if we don’t do something like this.”

Tryon Farm is a conservation subdivision in northwest Indiana. This 40-acre field is farmed and permanently preserved. The preserved barn is enjoyed by the residents.

Photos courtesy of LandChoices

6 ON COMMON GROUND

In Rhinebeck, meanwhile, landowners, citizens and lo-cal officials are still working out the kinks in an alterna-tive plan with the help of Arendt, who was hired by the landowners to offer a workable solution.

“As we were driving to the area I said, ‘I am in favor of building right next to existing population centers,’” Arendt recalls. “But then I walked the land and saw the steep slopes, a working lumber yard within the planned ‘node’ and the drainage issues. It was simply unsuited to a traditional neighborhood development. On paper it looked terrific, but when you got below the surface there were problems. I said if you want to do Smart Growth, let’s do something we can do.”

Working with five area landowners and local citizens, Arendt devised a plan to group the 200 units in pockets on 15 percent of their land while preserving the rest. The owners of property that remained undeveloped would sell, or “transfer”, their development rights to those whose land on which was built.

“At first the town only saw us as being NIMBY,” or Not in My Backyard, Anthone recalls. “But when you looked at it from a practical perspective, there was no developer who was going to build on those slopes, with the wet-lands and streams draining to the Hudson.”

While the 20-acre zonings would merely have created “large-lot sprawl”, the new plan “protects special view-sheds and watersheds, as well as the hamlet and our historic district, and allows for growth,” Anthone says. The planning is ongoing because the transfer of devel-opments rights can be tricky, and the town is working to ensure moderate and affordable housing, because “we don’t want to be just the place you commute to the city from,” Anthone says.

As for the key lesson learned: “You can’t just say you don’t want something without an alternative plan that is viable, because the alternative could be much worse.”

David A. Goldberg is the communications director for Smart Growth America, a nationwide coalition based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for land-use policy reform. In 2002, Mr. Goldberg was award-ed a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University, where he studied urban policy.

Top photo: Landowners turned down a developer’s proposal that would have destroyed the 50-acre orchard on this 120-acre property named The Ponds at Woodward in Pennsylvania. Developers received a 62 percent greater return by preserving the orchard in a conservation design subdivision with 57 homes. As a result, two-thirds of the property has been permanently protected, including 10 acres of mature woodlands and a working orchard (producing apples and peaches) encompassing more than 50 acres.

Bottom photo: Trim’s Ridge in Rhode Island is a 10-acre conservation design subdivision, located in New Harbor, New Shoreham, R.I., which protects three-fourths of the site as open space.

Photos courtesy of Randall Arendt and LandChoices

7WINTER 2009


A desert mountain preserve in Phoenix. A community park in northern Georgia. Farms in the state of Maine.

Across the country American voters have embraced the idea of paying more to preserve open spaces, keep farmland

intact, expand parks and acquire environmentally fragile pieces of property.

During the last 20 years, more than 2,100 ballot mea-sures at the city, county and state level have gone before voters, according to a database maintained by the non-profit Trust for Public Land, and more than 1,600 were given a yes vote.

While some ballot measures had other items — such as road construction projects — included with them, the Trust for Public Land says the total amount of money dedicated to conservation alone during that time period is a staggering $46.8 billion.

Voters from Maine all the way to Hawaii have approved the measures, which have utilized a variety of different funding mechanisms, from dedicated property taxes, increased sales taxes, bonds and even a portion of lot-

Vo t e r s S a y

Ye s t o C o n s e r v a t i o nHistorically Americans Support Measures

That Have A Tangible Result

By Gary Fineout

Voters from Maine all the way to

Hawaii have approved measures,

which have utilized a variety of

different funding mechanisms.

Unique to the Sonoran Desert, the Saguaro Cactus can be seen for miles in Phoenix, Ariz.

Courtesy of Phoenix Parks Development Division


tery ticket sales. Only five states — Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia — have not had a conservation measure go before voters. And measures have been approved in 43 of the 45 states where they reached the ballot.

Will Abberger, associate director of conservation finance for the Trust for Public Land, says the success rate of the initiatives shows that Americans are willing to pay more for something that has a tangible, visible benefit.

“Any time you are talking about a tax increase, which most of them are, that’s hard for people, especially in the economic climate we’re in,” said Abberger, who works on initiatives in the eastern United States. “But Americans are willing to increase their taxes if they know it’s going to be spent on something reasonable, like land conversa-tion. When people can actually see the benefit of what they are doing, they are willing to vote for this.”

What started out as just a trickle in 1988 has turned into a torrent. While there was an estimated 24 measures on the ballot 20 years ago, the number has skyrocketed in recent years. Each of the last two presidential election years has featured more than 200 initiatives.

Some of the largest approved measures include a $2.94 billion bond referendum approved in New Jersey back in

1998 as well as four bond measures in California total-ing more than $7 billion that have been approved since 2000. Voters in Forsyth County, Georgia — located north of Atlanta — approved a $100 million initiative in February, while voters in Phoenix, Arizona, approved a $900 million measure this past May.

Peggy Neely, a REALTOR® and vice mayor of the city of Phoenix, said she supported the Phoenix Parks and Pre-serve Initiative because creating additional open spaces is a must for growing communities.

“As a REALTOR®, I think open space helps the quality of life,” said Neely, who owns Arizona Home Team and has been in the real estate business since 1990. “We need to find a way to make that open space a reality.”

Neely pointed out that the Phoenix Parks and Preserve Initiative — which dedicated one-tenth of one percent sales tax to purchase land for preservation and construct neighborhood parks — was first approved in 1999. The money has been used to add 3,700 acres to the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve, build six regional parks and make improvements to 160 neighborhood parks. Voters this year were asked to extend the tax for another 30 years, a move that will help the community accelerate its pres-ervation efforts.

“As a REALTOR®, I think open space helps the quality of life. We

need to find a way to make that open space a reality.”

Photo courtesy of Phoenix Parks Development Division

9

Neely said boosting land acquisition efforts were needed because of escalating land prices in the Phoenix area. She said other efforts to create open space — such as density transfers — had proven to be unwieldy.

“We needed to go ahead and find a mechanism to make it work,” said Neely.

Nationwide, so far in 2008 a total of 25 measures have been already approved and nearly 80 more will be decid-ed this fall, including a statewide initiative in Minnesota that would dedicate some $5.5 billion for parks, trails and wildlife habitat and watershed protection.

“I think this year will be comparable to other general election years in terms of ballot activity,” said Abberger, who said that three out of every four initiatives are approved by voters.

But not every initiative is a winner. A $401 million measure in San Mateo County in California that called for a one-eighth cent sales tax hike for 25 years to pay

for parks and open space was defeated in June after it failed to get a required yes vote from two-thirds of vot-ers. A similar measure in that county had been defeated in 2006.

The measure in Minnesota, which adds three-eighths of one percent increase in the state sales tax for the next 25 years, is also controversial and has drawn opposition from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce which says businesses in that state cannot afford another tax.

Ken Martin, the campaign director of Yes for Minne-sota campaign, remains confident that the measure will pass. The amendment is backed by a coalition that includes hunting and fishing organizations as well as environmental groups.

“I think Minnesotans over time have shown that they are willing to invest in things that are priorities in this state,” said Martin publicly at the time the group launched its campaign in favor of the amendment.

People are worried

about losing their

legacy. They are tied

to the land.

Photo courtesy of Phoenix Parks Development Division

10 ON COMMON GROUND

While the initiatives tracked by the Trust for Public Land call for dedicating money for land conversation, a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Florida calls for a cheaper way to preserve property. Voters will be asked this fall to grant a permanent property tax break to landowners who agree to place a conservation ease-ment on their property. So instead of having govern-ment buy the property, the landowner is instead given a financial incentive to keep it undeveloped.

The amendment has won the backing of environmental groups and business organizations who called it a “bal-ance between economic growth and environmental stewardship.”

“It’s important for us to grow better over the next 10 million people than we did the last 10 million, otherwise there won’t be a Florida to pass on to the next generation,” said Adam Babington, legislative counsel for the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

The measure would also direct the Florida Legislature to pass a greenbelt law that would guarantee that land-owners would pay property taxes based on existing use instead of “highest and best use.” That practice could

encourage farmers and others to maintain their land the way it is now, argued Eric Draper from Audubon of Florida.

“This could result in a tremendous private effort,” said Draper.

Eric Gorsegner, assistant director of the Sun Corridor Legacy Program with the Sonoran Institute in Arizona, predicts that land conservation measures will continue to be popular with voters who want to see parts of their heritage preserved. He said the Phoenix initiative has enabled the city to keep undeveloped mountain land that now is viewed as a hallmark for the community, in the same way that the Golden Gate Bridge is the hall-mark for San Francisco.

“Even in these rough times, this is an enduring issue,” said Gorsegner, who was once worked on behalf of the Phoenix Association of REALTORS®. “People are worried about losing their legacy. They are tied to the land.”

Gary Fineout is an award-winning journal-ist who covered politics and government for nearly 20 years. He previously worked in the Tallahassee bureau of The Miami Herald and his work has also appeared in The New York Times and several other Florida newspapers. He is now an independent journalist.

It’s important for us to grow better over the next 10 million people

than we did the last 10 million.

11WINTER 2009

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

The Presumpscot River located in Southern Maine’s Cumberland County.

State government

open space preservationtakes a lead in

Preserving the Atlantic Coastal States

The tourists and retirees came to Florida in droves, lured by sunny days and year-round warmth. Then the young families, military folks, immigrants and frozen northerners came by the millions to stake their Sun-

shine State claim in the prime of their lives.

The incredible population growth was fueled by people creating new lives in an enchanting land of sparkling waters

from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, hundreds of miles of pristine sandy coastline, thick citrus groves and dense forest, plus an ecosystem unique to the world — a river of grass and gators known as the Everglades.

But when tens of millions of people choose to live in a wild peninsula of a state, the ravenous demand for waterfront condos and inland suburban dwellings cre-ates an inevitable clash between the people and the very environment that enticed them to leave the snow of the north for Florida’s natural charms.

In order to meet these demands while preserving its open space, the state created Florida Forever — a fund that can be used for buying sensitive lands for conservation.

Florida Forever is one of the best-known efforts among states that are putting their land preservation money where their mouth is — even in tough economic times that are creating billion-dollar budget deficits.

12 ON COMMON GROUND

Around the nation, state governments are realizing that quality of life requires a delicate balance between land development and land conservation.

And just like they make master plans and budgets for roads, transit, commerce and housing, they are com-mitting large sums of public dollars and government resources toward protecting unique and pristine lands.

The Florida Forever program was recently extended through the year 2020, to provide $300 million per year for land conservation.

“Florida continues to demonstrate a commitment to preserving the natural, cultural and historical resources that make the state so unique,” said Michael W. Sole, Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. “The state Legislature recently extended our most important land conservation tool, the Florida For-ever program, another 10 years. Through this program, the largest in the nation, and its predecessor, more than two million acres of Florida’s vital lands, valuable wa-terways and springs have been preserved, and habitat has been protected for countless numbers of Florida’s natural plant and animal species.”

Around the nation, state governments are realizing that quality of life requires

a delicate balance between land development and land conservation.

The use of conservation easement options in Florida has successfully protected millions of acres of wildlife habitat and open space, keeping land in private hands and generating significant public benefits.

13

• The Maine Huts and Trail system will eventually connect two of Maine’s premier tourism centers: the Moosehead Lake area to Bethel in western Maine. The trail system not only adds a recreation asset, but also is expected to generate substantial economic activity such as second homes and resorts.

• The Jordan Farm project in Cape Elizabeth is an example of land conservation co-existing with and complementing residential development. The town

Landowners see the need for

permanent conservation of

our natural heritage.

and landowner wanted to maintain one of the area’s last working farms, but the landowner could not afford to donate the property. LMF and federal funding, along with a generous bargain sale of a conservation easement, led to the protection of the farm.

• The Fuller Farm is a mix of hayfields, grasslands and woodlands that slope down to the Nonesuch River in Scarborough, Maine. The 180-acre tract protects every-thing from moose to mink to meadowlarks. It also hosts skiing and a snowmobile trail. It almost became a subdi-vision of two-acre house lots, but the owners sold it for less than appraised value to the Scarborough Land Con-servation Trust, which was supported by a loan from the Trust for Public land and funding from LMF.

“Outright donations of conservation lands continue to be a significant part of Maine’s conservation scene, and I understand this to be true in many other states,” said Tim Glidden, director of Land for Maine’s Future. “I believe the principal motivation continues to be altru-istic. However, it is also true that we are witnessing a massive, generational transfer of accumulated wealth in this country and many landowners see both the need for permanent conservation of our natural heritage and the opportunity for significant tax benefits. Recent changes in tax law have been particularly important for the do-nation of permanent conservation easements.”

Photo left: Members of the Scarborough Land Conservation Trust celebrate the protection of the Fuller Farm with a special dedication to the community. Photo right: Jordans Farm has been a local favorite of Cape Elizabeth, Maine residents to pick up fresh farm vegetables for more than 60 years.

From Florida to Maine

On the other end of the Atlantic coast, Land for Maine’s Future (LMF) is a state agency that funds numerous success stories in its state.

• The Downeast Lakes Forestry Partnership is a project initiated by sporting camp owners, guides and crafts-men who sought to protect the land base that provided for their livelihood. Centered in and around Grand Lake Stream in Downeast Maine, this effort has now conserved more than 342,000 acres. The lakes and rivers that form the core assets of the region are now largely conserved, but lands remain in the traditional develop-ment centers for activity that supports the traditional economies of the region.

14 ON COMMON GROUND

Maryland’s Early Conservation Efforts

The state of Maryland can boast that it is enter-ing its fifth decade of dedicating resources to land conservation. Various state agencies and initiatives have protected nearly 400,000 acres.

Shaun Fenlon, director of Land Acquisition and Planning for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, estimates that he has participated in at least 200 conservation easement deals where a landowneris paid to permanently protect his property from harmful development.

“There are a lot of benefits from land conservation,” he said. “What I’ve said to some people is to imagine what

Maryland, including the Chesapeake Bay, would look like in the year 2050 if we hadn’t ever done any land con-servation starting in the late 1960s and hadn’t continued doing it in a focused way over the next 42 years.”

Fenlon said every state in the union should make land con-servation a priority because of the vast benefits including better water and air quality; additional natural recreational sites; Smart Growth planning, which discourages sprawl; locally produced food and fiber to support our nation’s demand without being affected by global markets; and the moral imperative of preserving land for future generations.

Every state in the union should make land conservation a priority

because of the vast benefits.

Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program provides the focus and funding necessary to protect large, contiguous tracts of land and other strategic areas from devel-opment and to enhance natural resource, agricultural, forestry and environmental protection through cooperative efforts among state and local governments and land trusts. Above: Garrett County, Md. Left: Potomac River

15WINTER 2009

17WINTER 2009

Hawaii’s Pristine Lands

On Hawaii’s Big Island, the 24,000-acre Kealakekua Heritage Ranch in Kona was once slated for intense development with 500 houses.

But working with state officials, a land trust and an architect-planner with a vision for sustainability, the ranch-owning Pace family was able to create a land-mark conservation deal that will protect almost all the pristine property.

“The Pace family had a different vision,” said Greg Hen-drickson, ranch manager and an attorney with expertise in conservation easements. “The family is committed to protecting this land from the kind of development planned for it prior to their purchase, and is instead interested in maintaining this ranch as working lands.”

The result will be development of 200 to 250 privateinhabitation compounds in average of four-acre enclo-sures, with the balance of a homeowner’s 20-acre deeded lot being leased to the public for a recreational and agricul-tural common area, according to architect Clark Stevens.

“The acquisition of this conservation easement on Keal-akekua Heritage Ranch will be the largest single conser-

vation easement transaction in the state of Hawaii’s his-tory, involving nearly 9,000 acres, $4 million in federal Forest Legacy funding, and more than $12 million value in donation, for a total expected value of more than $16 million,” said Laura H. Thielen, chairperson of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, a state agency.

Stevens, the designer of the Kealakekua Heritage Ranch-Hokukano Preserve, said the final project will have 96 percent protected open space for orchards, pasture and native forest — including all of the areas above 4,000 feet in elevation, “which is the critical line for survival of native bird species as it is above the avian malaria elevation.”

The one-of-a-kind conservation development also will feature hundreds of miles of trails remaining from his-toric logging and current grazing in the forest areas. “The project is planned to be off the grid, with rebates off of the price of the lot going to those who employ alternative energy and certified sustainable construction materials and techniques in a point system similar to the LEED approach,” said Stevens, stressing that even the fraction of developed lands will be very green and sustainable.

16 ON COMMON GROUND

17WINTER 2009

Conservation easements support our

economy, preserve ecosystems and

products communities need to flourish

and protect our cultural values for

future generations.

Thielen praised the Pace family and landowners who are beginning to understand that there are land use options that will allow them to keep their land and continue producing income from it — as well as gain long-term tax benefits and reduced property taxes.

“In the short-term, the successful completion of a conservation easement for Kealakekua Heritage Ranch strengthens the state’s credibility to complete large con-servation easement transactions,” said Thielen. “Con-servation easements support our economy, preserve ecosystems and products communities need to flourish and protect our cultural values for future generations. Kealakekua Heritage Ranch is a Hawaiian example of finding common ground between conservation and working lands.”

Jean Murphy, past president of the Hawaii Association of REALTORS® and still an active REALTOR® with Clark Realty on the Big Island, has preached the value of open space, preserved view corridors and conserved natural areas throughout her 46 years of working on property development in the real estate profession.

“The vistas (in Hawaii) are so beautiful and when you look down and see those hills are not changed, that the land is kept natural in perpetuity — it gives you a good feeling,” she said.

In the mid-1980s, Murphy was working with a devel-oper during a tough real estate market.

“The developer wanted to put in more condos, but I suggested a golf course — which substitutes for open space some time,” she recalled. “I mailed 10,000 people and asked them whether they would want to be next to more condos or in a residential community with mini-mum 15,000-square-foot lots with unspoiled vistas. Ninety-eight percent said they preferred to buy a house with views from on and above a golf course.”

Murphy’s land conservation poll received an amazing four percent return rate and helped shape a future of preservation at Kona’s Keauhou Resort.

“The people’s vote was followed and 135 lots sold out in three years. The home values have remained high; we recently had a resale for $1.8 million,” she said.

Murphy also worked to preserve ocean views on the Kona-Kohala Coast on the western side of the Big Island.

Map: The New West Land Company has a comprehensive conservation land use plan for both Hokukano and Kealakekua Ranches in Hawaii.

19WINTER 2009

major historical sites have been restored on the grounds: the Lekeleke Burial Grounds and the birthplace of Kamehameha III, Hawaii’s longest-reigning monarch.

An Example for the Nation

Back in Florida, the state hopes to soon close a historic deal that would purchase 187,000 acres (three times the size of the city of Orlando) of sugar cane growing land from U.S. Sugar.

The $1.75 billion purchase would be made by the state’s South Florida Water Management District, and used to support the federal government’s $10 billion Everglades restoration project. The largest conservation purchase in state history would use some of the land for a series of reservoirs and pollution filtering areas that would restore the flow of water between Lake Okeechobee and Ever-glades National Park. (See additional details on page 40 of the Conservation Synergy article.)

“The possible acquisition of the land and assets of Unit-ed States Sugar has huge potential for the restoration of America’s Everglades,” said Sole. “If we do acquire these tracts of land, it would give us the chance to store and clean water on a scale we never thought possible, allow-ing us to better manage water critical for the restoration of our treasured River of Grass, as well as protect our coastal estuaries.”

U.S. Sugar’s 77-year-old cane operation would shut down in about six years. But more than 100,000 acres of state-purchased lands could be turned back to farming.

A stalled development had built a seven-story, concrete building right on the water’s edge. Murphy came on board in 1990 to help a developer revive the project.

“I told them to tear down that seven-story concrete monstrosity,” she said.

The result was the Resort at Hualalai, a world-renown, low-rise development of homes, villas, championship golf courses, spa and the five diamond Four Seasons Resort Hualalai.

Murphy also has worked on master plans for developments of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, a trust that owns one-eighth of the land in Hawaii. Created from the will of Bishop — the last royal princess of the Hawaiian Islands — the multibillion dollar trust funds the Kamehameha Schools, a private, co-educational college preparatory institution with several campuses across the islands.

Murphy is well-aware of the delicate balance between developing land to fund the historic schools founded in 1887 and the need to preserve archaeological sites on the ancestral lands.

The Keauhou Resort’s charter and a cultural advisory committee ensure that future development is culturally correct and restoration of historic sites is a priority. Two

The scenic Pal Mar contains 13,330 acres of conservation land protected in Martin County, Fla.

18 ON COMMON GROUND

19WINTER 2009

Florida Forever helps to lower the

cost per home for developers by

moving imperiled species.

Keyna Cory, a principal in Public Affairs Consultants and chief lobbyist for Associated Industries of Florida, said many people forget the strong economic benefits of conservation.

“Florida Forever isn’t just about preserving land but also is about better land management and addressing problems of invasive plant species that can ruin land. It is about pro-tecting land, wildlife and access to waterways,” she said. “Without access to waterways and things like boat ramps, Florida’s marine industry is adversely affected. Florida

Forever has obvious benefits when it comes to preserving the environment, but it also makes it economically feasible to live and work in Florida.”

Cory said Florida Forever has been instrumental in protecting imperiled species such as the gopher tortoise and panthers.

“[The program] helps to lower the cost per home for developers by moving imperiled species to protected areas and creating sites for alternative water supply programs,” she explained. “It’s also about finding lands for alternative water supply programs — not huge, ugly desalinization plants, but things like reservoirs.”

Cory said no one in the business community wants to see a totally blacktopped Florida.

“The Florida Forever project is a unique situation because it’s the first time businesses and conservationists worked arm and arm to work together on a bill like this,” she said.

Heidi Johnson-Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. She and her husband live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact her at: [email protected].

This urban stormwater retrofit in Martin County, Fla., is designed to mitigate erosive flows, reduce pollutants in stormwater runoff and promote conditions for improved aquatic habitat.


Hundreds of homeowners can lay claim to Baltimore’s best back yard. That’s because it’s not really a back yard. It’s Patterson Park.

A decade ago, the neighborhoods sur-rounding the park were in decline. So

was the 137-acre park.

“It was in pretty bad shape,” said Chris Ryer, president and CEO of the South East Community Development Corporation (SECDC) in Baltimore.

Not anymore.

When the SECDC and other community organizations launched a neighborhood revitalization campaign, their strategy revolved around improving Patterson Park. A new group, the Friends of Patterson Park, raised money, recruited volunteers and ultimately convinced the city to create a master plan to overhaul the park.

While many of the plan’s recommendations remain to be carried out, many have been completed, including cleaning up a lake, restoring a historic pagoda, renovat-ing a swimming pool and stepping up maintenance. “It’s a very attractive park now,” Ryer said.

How attractive? A community development organiza-tion bought several hundred homes around the park, renovated them and then used the park as a marketing tool, said Ryer. After paying as little as $60,000, the organization is selling the homes for up to $200,000 — with some that directly border the park going for $300-$400,000.

The park’s Web site proudly proclaims Patterson Park as “the best back yard in Baltimore.” Ryer calls it a “classic example” of the power of parks to help make neighbor-hoods more valuable — especially where development is dense.

By Brad Broberg

Parks help make neighborhoods

more valuable.

Patterson Park in Baltimore, Md.

Green Space Is a Premium when Building, Buying or Selling

Everybody Loves a Park


“It’s a little counter-intuitive, but you want green space in a high-density area,” he said. “The green space is what allows the density to happen. Patterson Park is a great example of that because there is nothing denser than southeast Baltimore. It’s street after street of row houses as far as the eye can see.”

That strategy — balancing the yin of green space against the yang of greater density — is a cornerstone of Smart Growth.

Smart Growth encourages compact development as an antidote to sprawl. Preserving green space is part and parcel to that approach. The green space makes the density more palatable and the density makes the green space more desirable.

“I’m a fan of density around parks,” said Peter Harnick of the Trust for Public Land.

Harnick doesn’t buy the argument that dense develop-ment around a park sullies its beauty. Putting parks in heavily populated neighborhoods enables more people to walk to them instead of drive — another principle of Smart Growth.

“If you have large estates surrounding a park, you have a smaller population (with easy access to) the park,” he said. “The more people you pull up tight to the park … the more people you have who will use the park and the more benefit you get from the park.”

Increased property values are often among those benefits — a fact confirmed by more than a dozen studies, said John Crompton, a professor in the Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A & M University.

Crompton is the author of “The Proximate Principle: The Impact of Parks, Open Space and Water Features on Residential Property Values and the Property Tax Base.” His conclusion: the premium for homes border-ing a park can start at 20 percent and extends to homes within three blocks at a gradually declining rate.

The premium for homes

bordering a park can start at

20 percent and extends to

homes within three blocks at

a gradually declining rate.

21

23WINTER 2009

Now, everything old is new again and the argument that parks make nearby real estate more valuable is once more part of the rationale behind their development. Smart Growth — with its focus on urban infill versus suburban sprawl — is a big reason why.

Example: Highlands’ Garden Village, a 27-acre urban infill project in Denver that dedicated a quarter of the site to green space. “There are parks and gardens

Thanks to the number-crunching muscle of computers, that’s more than an educated guess. It’s a scientific ob-servation. Yet it was known — and put to use — more than a century ago.

“If you look at the history of the parks movement, the rationale in those early days for parks was that they gen-erated premiums for real estate,” Crompton said.

Crompton browses the archives of every city he visits. “When you look up how their park systems evolved, you see real estate interests coming forward,” he said. “They drove the early park systems.”

That changed after World War II, said Crompton. Sub-urbia gave homeowners their own green spaces. Parks, so desirable in urban settings, were no longer viewed in terms of their potential to boost property values.

The argument that parks make

nearby real estate more valuable

is once more part of the rationale

behind their development.

Living 10 minutes from downtown Denver, Highland Park residents value the common park and garden areas, which provide premium open space near the city.

22 ON COMMON GROUND

23WINTER 2009

everywhere within the project,” said Jonathan Rose, co-developer of the mixed-use community.

Parks are “tremendous value creators,” Rose said. “It’s always been recognized by some, but I think it’s becom-ing more broadly recognized because the consumer wants it.”

Citing a theory known as biophilia, Rose said humans are “biologically designed” to appreciate nature. Trans-lated into practical terms: “The consumer responds strongly to open space.”

Rose finds it “entirely counter-intuitive” that measures to save green space are often opposed by the local real estate community. “I guess the inference is that … pre-serving land means less land to develop,” he said. That may be true, said Rose, but the loss of land is offset by the value green space adds to nearby homes and the dol-lars it adds to real estate transactions.

The Trust for Pubic Land recently analyzed the benefits Philadelphia derives from its park system. The study concluded that parks increased adjacent property values by a combined $688.8 million in 2007 and generated an additional $181.1 million in property taxes for the city.

When it comes to adding value, not all parks are created equal. “Value is made up of a little bit of a lot of things,” Harnick said. The two biggest drivers: distance from the park and the quality of the park.

Highlands’ Garden Village is a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, mixed-income redevelopment on a historic abandoned amusement park in Denver, Colo.

Parks are tremendous value

creators … it’s becoming more

broadly recognized because the

consumer still wants it.

25WINTER 2009

Crompton’s rule of thumb calculates the added value at 20 percent for homes abutting or fronting a park, 10 percent for homes one block away and 5 percent for homes two blocks away. Size does matter, though, and large parks may add greater value over greater distances than small ones, he said.

Much hinges on the park itself. “It depends on how good the park is as a neighbor,” Harnick said.

Passive parks — also referred to as ornamental parks — almost always add more value than active ones. In fact, the lights, noise and traffic associated with sports fields can actually lower the value of homes near active parks, said Crompton. Likewise, a neglected or unsafe passive park can also drive down values.

One way to gauge the value of green space is to look at property values in golf course communities. Only one in five households in golf course communities includes someone who plays golf, yet people pay a 30- to 50-percent premium to live there, said Crompton.

Image is one reason. The other? “It’s the view,” Crompton said. “It’s the green space.”

Like anything else, the value added by green space is a function of supply and demand. “I don’t think an ornamental park in a rural area does anything for property values because you’re drowning in green space anyway,” Harnick said. “You sort of need a tight urban fabric for an ornamental park to work.”

Rose, on the other hand, thinks even parks in rural settings add at least some value. “They create a social fabric for the community,” he said. “People don’t picnic on their own land.”

Parks create a

social fabric for

the community.

24 ON COMMON GROUND

25WINTER 2009

Still, it makes sense that urban residents would regard green space as especially precious. Consider the reac-tion of downtown San Diego residents when the city adopted a new plan that boosted density.

“We expected pushback on the density issue, but we never got it,” said Alexandra Elias, former advance plan-ning manager for the Centre City Development Cor-poration, a nonprofit agency spearheading downtown redevelopment. “People just wanted the amenities that went with it, most of which were parks.”

The city obliged by including six new parks in the downtown plan. “The parks became the centerpiece for the redevelopment of downtown to meet growth in the future,” Elias said.

Currently in various stages of progress, the parks are situated so that every downtown resident is within a five-minute walk of at least one of them. While Elias can’t point to any evidence that the parks are boosting property values, the fact that residents expressed so

much interest in them suggests they’re willing to pay more to live nearby, she said.

Another example in Chattanooga, the development of Coolidge Park along the Tennessee River helped revive the dying North Shore commercial district by becom-ing a magnet, said Chad Wamack, a REALTOR® with Grubb & Ellis/Hudson Companies.

“It was sort of a depressed area (but) it’s just thriving today, even in our slowing economy,” he said. “At the same time, the residential areas that surround the North Shore district have experienced huge (appreciation).”

If history continues down the same path, demand for parks will always provide a driving force in the real estate market.

Brad Broberg is a Seattle-based freelance writer spe-cializing in business and development issues. His work appears regularly in the Puget Sound Business Jour-nal and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.

Demand for parks will always provide a

driving force in the real estate market.

Chattanooga celebrates the opening of its 21st Century waterfront along the Tennessee River.


PRESERVING OURN AT U R A L L A N D S

More than 1,700 land trusts in

America work with federal, state

and local governments plus

developers, investors, individual

landowners and heirs to conserve

crucial natural areas.

West Virginia’s New River Gorge, world renowned for its white-water rafting and scenic views, is one of the most popular natural areas in all of Middle America.

Any government agency on earth would just about leap off a gorge’s cliffs to add thousands of acres of preserved land to a famed wild and wonderful river.

Last year, the West Virginia Division of Natural Re-sources had a willing seller ready to part with 4,600 picture-perfect acres overlooking the New River Gorge.

The seller wanted quick payment in one lump sum. But the state of West Virginia, though salivating over the chances to add the huge tract to its Beury Mountain Wildlife Management Area, didn’t have the financial resources to write one big check on the spot.

By Steve Wright

New River Gorge, West VirginiaL A N D T R U S T S


Enter The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a leading con-servation organization whose more than one million members have been responsible for protecting more than 15 million acres in the United States. The non-profit land trust stepped in and purchased the largest preservation property acquired in West Virginia in more than two decades.

“The Nature Conservancy has the ability to step in, borrow funds internally to pick up the property, and then sell the property back to a government agency as funding becomes available,” said Rodney Bartgis, state director for the Nature Conservancy in West Virginia. “TNC gets reimbursed for the cost of the land and di-rect expenses like survey and appraisal.”

Such land-saving deals are taking place each day as more than 1,700 land trusts in America work with federal, state and local governments plus developers, investors, individual landowners and heirs to conserve crucial natural areas.

“Conserving this forest along the New River Gorge is a conservation success story for all of West Virginia,” West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said in TNC release an-nouncing the New River Gorge deal’s closing early this

Conserving this forest along

the New River Gorge is a

conservation success story

for all of West Virginia.

Bear Rocks Preserves is on Dolly Sods, a high plateau atop the Allegheny Front in West Virginia.

year. “This project is an excellent example of a wise state investment in our natural resources. It provides a new place for public recreation, continuing to make West Virginia a destination for hunters and tourists and im-proving the quality of life for West Virginians.”

The Mountain State will pay back TNC over time, us-ing funds generated each year from hunting and fishing license fees. The property, formerly owned by Mountain Top Management, Inc., borders National Park Service lands of the New River Gorge National River for more than 4.5 miles.

“We had completed a land transaction with the owner in Maryland, and they indicated they had this property available in West Virginia and inquired if we were in-terested. We were, because it buffered the forests owned by the National Park Service in the New River Gorge, which we had identified as being important because it is one of the least fragmented large forested blocks in the Central Appalachians,” said Bartgis, noting that the new

©Kent Mason

27

29WINTER 2009

purchase, added to existing conserved lands, protects a total of 10,000 acres of state-owned land on the plateau overlooking the gorge.

According to TNC, a National Park Service study con-cluded that tourists spend more than $75 million a year in the four-county area surrounding the New River.

“I see conservation of land and economic development as symbiotic,” Dave Arnold, member of the West Vir-ginia Tourism Commission and co-owner of Class VI River Runners, one of the New River Gorge’s largest rafting companies, said in a statement released by TNC. “The acquisition of this tract shows that we can strike a balance between development and conservation. As-suring these lands will be available for enjoyment of the public spurs economic growth by drawing sportsmen to local businesses and by providing another amenity that can attract visitors to the region.”

Bartgis concluded “The Nature Conservancy used its abilities to marshal financial resources at the speed of business, enabling the state to undertake a transaction it otherwise could not.”

Land trusts — such as TNC, the National Park Trust and the Trust for Public Land down to little local non-profits created simply to save a little park from being paved over or to ensure that a stream is protected from agricultural or industrial pollution — are growing throughout this nation as a hedge against land misuse and urban sprawl.

The Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a Washington D.C.-based organization that coordinates procedure, infor-mation, ethical standards, technology, policy, training and more for 1,700 land trusts across America, counted fewer than 450 state and local land trusts nationwide when it was created 25 years ago.

“America’s 1,700 land trusts are local, citizen-led charities that work to protect special places in their communities,

Land Trusts are growing throughout this nation as

a hedge against land misuse and urban sprawl.

Greens Bayou, Texas

28 ON COMMON GROUND

29WINTER 2009

said LTA President Rand Wentworth. “Voters are in-creasingly demanding clean drinking water, local farms, parks and wildlife habitat. Instead of meeting these needs through government condemnation or regulation, land trusts are politically attractive since they respect private property rights and offer tax incentives for landowners to voluntarily conserve their property.”

The LTA worked with Congress to pass a major increase in federal conservation tax incentives to help relieve many farmers and ranchers from paying federal income taxes for 16 years in exchange for donating a conserva-tion easement on their land. The extension for the in-creased incentive expires in 2009 and LTA is lobbying hard to make the law permanent.

“Private land conservation makes economic sense,” Wentworth said. “Unlike a new subdivision, farms and green space do not require expensive public services like schools, fire protection, water and sewer. So land con-servation can help keep property taxes from increasing: cows don’t go to school.”

Wentworth said the more than two million people that are land trust members and, at the least, 90,000 profes-sionals that work for America’s land trusts are making unparalleled progress.

“During the 1990s America developed about 2.2 mil-lion acres per year, according to the USDA’s Natural

Above: Arthur Storey Park in Harris County, Texas, effectively incorporates park and recreational features with a 220-acre stormwater detention basin.

Below: Wild flowers bloom in Onion Creek, which is part of the beautiful Hill Country in Austin, Texas.

31WINTER 2009

and permanently protect 5,000 acres — with 7,500 more acres in process to be protected,” he continued. “We’re really just getting started. The potential to help protect tens and even hundreds of thousands of acres through private investments is very real. If we’re going

Resources Inventory,” he said. Since the late 1990s, per-manent land protection by private landowners, working with land trusts, actually outpaced development. From 1998-2005, approximately 2.6 million acres per year were permanently conserved by private land trusts.”

Carl Palmer — principal and co-founder of Beartooth Capital Partners, a conservation-minded investment firm in Bozeman, Mt. — cut his teeth in the preserva-tion business while serving as executive director of the Ogden Nature Center, a land trust and education center in Northern Utah.

Land trusts continue to be an important cog in his suc-cessful group which makes private equity investments that generate competitive risk-adjusted returns while restoring and protecting ecologically important land in the Western United States.

“We make investments that create value and mitigate risk for our investors while having a compelling conservation impact,” Palmer said. “We work with leading conserva-tion groups including The Nature Conservancy and oth-ers to enhance the amount of conservation they would not otherwise be able to accomplish on their own.”

“In the past two years, we have helped restore miles of river and stream, return water rights to in-stream use

In the past two years, we have helped restore miles of river and stream,

return water rights to in-stream use and permanently protect 5,000

acres — with 7,500 more acres in process to be protected.

The vast landscape of Montana’s Little Wood Headwaters Ranch and its surroundings include the Little Wood River (the largest riparian corridor); Baugh Creek (the smaller corridor); and the Pioneer Mountains.

©Bear Tooth Capital, www.kestrelarial.com

30 ON COMMON GROUND

31WINTER 2009

to accomplish enough conservation in the next 10 to 20 years to protect places like the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we had better realize that potential.”

Working with land trusts and landowners, Beartooth gen-erates tax savings by placing conservation easements on properties that will remain private. It also has occasionally brokered the transfer of ownership of high-priority con-servation land to public agencies or nonprofits.

“We create value in a variety of ways, from fixing flaws with properties to enhancing their value as recreational ranches through restoration of rivers and streams.” Palmer explained. “Each project is unique — we simply look for opportunities to create financial value while do-ing what is right for the land and what our conservation partners want to see happen. It certainly doesn’t work for every property, but there are lots of opportunities

There are lots of opportunities

to create financial value while

protecting and enhancing

ecological value.

to create financial value while protecting and enhancing ecological value — the two often go hand in hand if you bring the right perspective to bear on the problem.”

Palmer and his partners started Beartooth because of the tremendous potential they saw for private capital to play an important role in increasing the amount of land con-served. He said Beartooth is compiling a track record of achievement that demonstrates investors can earn strong returns while helping conservation groups fulfill their critical missions.

“The important work that nonprofits like The Nature Conservancy and Montana Land Reliance are doing is absolutely critical if we’re going to protect the West’s wide-open landscapes and the wildlife that live there,” he said. “But the pace of habitat conversion and devel-opment is such that everyone agrees we’re not getting enough done — we need to figure out ways to change the game and accomplish conservation at a greater scale. Since there is so much more private capital than there is philanthropic and government funding, the conserva-tion community has long looked for vehicles that could effectively put private investment capital to work in a way that leads to real conservation results.”

Keith Fountain, director of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy’s Florida office, said land trusts can

33WINTER 2009

said of Rayonier, which is proud that — as one of the largest private timberland owners in the U.S. — its forests are certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

Fountain said the former Rayonier lands were crucial because they were part of the “holes in the Swiss cheese” that represent private holdings within the huge Black-water State Forest in Florida’s Panhandle.

Managed by the state’s Division of Forestry, the gigan-tic tract along the Blackwater River offers recreational opportunities such as hiking, swimming, camping, canoeing, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, horseback riding and nature study.

influence the decisions of large real estate holders to pro-tect nature while also protecting their bottom line.

“Rayonier was auctioning a 3,000-acre block in the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama and to their credit, they pulled about one-third of land out of the auction package to sell it in a straight transaction to us,” Fountain said of the publicly-traded company that owns, leases or manages 2.6 million acres of timberland in the U.S. and New Zealand and sells timber for use in domestic and export markets.

“That company has a strong commitment to the sale of their lands that are important for conservation,” Fountain

Land trusts can

influence the

decisions of large

real estate

holders to protect

nature while also

protecting their

bottom line.

Above: The rapids at the Blackwater River watershed in Florida are part of the 58-mile long river arising in southern Alabama and flowing through the Florida Panhandle to the Gulf of Mexico. Below: Volunteers at the Nalle Bunny Run Wildlife Preserve in Texas cut and pile cedar trunks and branches to create several large brush piles which serve as cover and nesting sites for small mammals, reptiles and ground nesting birds.

©Vernon Compton/The Nature Conservancy

32 ON COMMON GROUND

33WINTER 2009

“There is a realization that green space and conservation land enhances the value of neighboring properties. As we often say, land is precious and they’re not making any more of it,” said John Sebree, head of public policy for the Florida Association of REALTORS®.

Sebree said REALTORS® are active with land trusts and understand that the environmental impacts of develop-ment can make it more difficult for communities to protect their natural resources.

“Where and how communities accommodate growth has a profound impact on the quality of their streams, rivers, lakes and beaches,” he said. “Development that uses land efficiently and protects undisturbed natural lands allows a community to grow and still protect its water resources.”

In Texas, the Hill Country Conservancy (HCC) just completed a deal to save a 1,318-acre section of the historic Storm Ranch located in northern Hays County. Through various phases working with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Texas Parks & Wildlife staff, the HCC has conserved the “5,675-acre working cattle ranch with ancient rock fences separating pastures of native grasses, magnificent live oaks and numerous creeks and streams.”

George Cofer, executive director of the HCC, said the final phase, to preserve the entire ranch, should be com-pleted in 2010.

“Conservation and enhancement of the many ‘public good’ values can be achieved through land trusts work-ing collaboratively with landowners to ensure proper range management practices that will conserve and often enhance wildlife habitat, scenic vistas and open space, water resources and archeological, historical and cultural resources,” he said. “Land Conservation can also provide environmental learning and public recreational opportunities. Preservation of the rural ranching/agricultural legacy is important to many com-munities as well.”

Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: [email protected]

There is a realization that green space and conservation land enhances the

value of neighboring properties.

Above: Bald cypress trees line the banks of the Colorado River at the 35-acre Nalle Bunny Run Wildlife Preserve in Texas.

Below: Volunteers in the fall of 2007 contributed more than 68 hours of service at the Storm Ranch in Texas. The Storm Ranch includes portions of the Onion Creek Watershed, the Colorado River Basin and the Blanco Watershed, and the Gaudalupe/Blanco River Basin.

35WINTER 2009

The National Park Trust (NPT) is a private land trust organization founded in 1983 that focuses on land ac-quisition and the protection of the national parks. At the heart of its vision is for everyone to have a national park experience.

“We want to get kids back to nature because there’s a correlation between outside activity and lowered rates of obesity and ADHD. There’s also a correlation between early positive experiences [at national parks] and desire to preserve later on,” said Kit McGinnis, NPT’s land projects manager.

NPT also strives to protect parkland from residential and commercial development. Threats to the continued existence and quality of the national parks include 4.3 million acres of land that are privately held within parks.

NPT is currently setting its sights on four properties in

Jefferson County, W. Va., the state’s easternmost county and home to portions of Harpers Ferry National His-torical Park and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

This is George Washington country. Washington surveyed the area’s wild lands and was enchanted by its beauty and fertility. He bought his first property, consisting of about 500 acres, and founded Bullskin Plantation in 1750.

Washington convinced his brothers to buy land there as well. At one point, there were 12 Washington family homes located in the county. The Washingtons were the area’s most prominent family throughout the 1800s.

This NPT project would create a National Historical Park based on the George Washington Family Legacy by linking the four non-contiguous sites as part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

The Washington Family Legacy

©Courtesy Curt Mason

34 ON COMMON GROUND

35WINTER 2009

This NPT project would create a National Historical Park based on the

George Washington Family Legacy.

Above photos: Bullskin field is part of the original land purchased in West Virginia by George Washington, and nearby, Happy Retreat was built by his brother Charles in Charles Town, W. Va.

Left photos: Both Blakeley and Claymont Court mansions are located on the Washington Heritage Trail in West Virginia, and Claymont Court remains open to the public.

The cornerstone property is Bullskin. Brother Charles’ Happy Retreat (built in 1780), and two other properties (Claymont Court and Blakeley), both built in the 1820s by Washington’s grand nephews, round out the quartet.

“Washington had no biological children, so these were his heirs and a big part of who inherited his legacy,” McGinnis said.

NPT has four property owners willing to be part of a study — which will take six months to three years to complete — on whether the sites merit inclusion in the National Park Service. Two of the properties are already on the market and the owners of the other two are inter-ested in selling to the right buyer.

To make the properties more attractive to the National Park Service, NPT is raising private funding to acquire and restore the properties to their former grandeur.

©Courtesy Todd Smith Photography

©Courtesy Walter Washington

©Courtesy Curt Mason


P r i vate Cor porat ions A re S e c u r i n g O p e n S p a c eSynergyConservation

The

American Electric Power donated private lands to estab-lish a wildlife preservation center where thousands of students every year come to learn about conservation.

Courtesy of The Wilds

Some environmentalists and

corporations have forged deals,

making private agreements a

way to preserve land.

Once accustomed to fighting each other in the courts and political arena, some environmental groups and corporations are finding it may be better to work together.

Although it is far from being a uni-versal trend, some environmentalists and corporations have forged deals that allow hundreds of thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive land to be preserved while also allowing for some land to be developed, mak-ing private agreements a way to preserve land.

One striking example of this new compromise approach came this past May in California where the owner of the largest tract of contiguous private property in the state inked a deal with a handful of environmental groups after years of fighting over development of the land that is located about 60 miles north of Los Angeles and 30 miles south of Bakersfield.

Under the agreement Tejon Ranch Corporation will build on 10 percent of the land along the Interstate 5 corridor. It will build the planned communities of Centennial and Tejon Mountain Village, as well as the development of the Grapevine area which is adjacent to Tejon Industrial Complex (TIC).

By Christine Jordan Sexton


The deal between Tejon

Ranch and the environmental

groups shows that California’s

environment can be protected

and at the same time, “we pump

up our economy.”

The TIC is located at the junction of Interstate 5 and Highway 99 at the southern end of California’s Central Valley. The 1,450-acre industrial/commercial complex is located between the ports of Oakland and Los An-geles and is a logistics center for California, the western United States and Canada.

Immediate plans focus on Centennial and Tejon Moun-tain Village, with the former being a 30-year build out master planned community with 23,000 homes. Tejon Mountain Village is a vacation destination, according to Barry Zoeller, Vice President and Director of Corporate Communications.

The area also is a crossroads of four ecosystems (the Sierra Nevada, Mojave Desert, San Joaquin Valley and Coastal Range). It is home to the endangered Califor-nia condor, spotted owl, and kit fox and other animal species. Its landscapes range from native grasslands to Joshua tree woodlands to oak and fir forests.

Despite the presence of significant ecosystems there is no opposition from environmental groups. The Sierra Club, Audubon California, the Natural Resources De-fense Council, Endangered Habitats and the Planning and Conservation Leagues, and Resource Opportunities LLC all signed off on the deal because Tejon Ranch has agreed to set aside 90 percent of its land — 178,000 acres — and provide an option for the public purchase of another 62,000 acres, most of which will be used for a state park.

Moreover, the company also agreed to reroute a 37-mile segment of the Pacific Crest Trail so that it goes through the ranch providing the public access to some never-be-fore-seen pristine land.

©National Park Service

37

39WINTER 2009

arrangement in 2006 to sell 80 percent of one of the largest undeveloped tracts in the state, known as the Babcock Ranch, while proposing to build a sustainable community on the remaining land.

Other recent examples of corporations and environmen-talists working together include:

• Environmental groups in California this year sup-ported a successful bid by a company owned by the founders of The Gap clothing store to take over a bank-rupt Northern California logging firm whose practices had sparked protests over the last two decades. The new owners have promised a more “sustainable’’ type of practice and attempted to reach out to those who had protested the logging.

• A coalition of environmental groups in Texas dropped opposition to a power plant expansion after NRG Texas LLC, a subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc., agreed in Au-gust to commit to offset production of greenhouse gases from the plant and reduce water usage.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the deal between Tejon Ranch and the environmental groups shows that California’s environment can be protected and at the same time “we pump up our economy.”

Robert Stine, president and CEO of Tejon Ranch Cor-poration said the agreement is “good for conservation, good for California and good for the company and its shareholders.”

“This is an agreement that goes beyond birds and beauty,” said National Audubon Society President John Flicker at the time of the announcement. “Business, en-vironmental and political leaders in California are show-ing the nation how we can all work together to achieve real conservation without conflict.”

The deal in California echoes a similar one in Florida where developer Syd Kitson put together an innovative

Business, environmental and

political leaders in California are

showing the nation how we can

all work together to achieve real

conservation without conflict.

Babcock Ranch in Ft. Meyers, Fla.

©2008 Onboard Informatics, photo by Jaimes Wilson

38 ON COMMON GROUND

39WINTER 2009

Utility giant American Electric Power (AEP) stepped up its environmental stewardship back in 1986 when it donated vacated strip-mine land to a group called the International Center for the Preservation of Wild Animals.

Now the 10,000 acres in southeastern Ohio is called The Wilds and some 75,000 visit annually to see African, Asian and North American species roam the restored land.

AEP is one of the nation’s largest generators of electricity and also is one of the most reliant on coal-fired plants. Coal is one of the largest sources of air pollution in the United States today.

When AEP “reclaimed” the land in the 1970s it didn’t

plant seed indigenous to the area. The reclaimed land was green, lush and prevented further erosion. However since the grass wasn’t native, The Wilds communication director Toni Kellar said, the ecosystem, which was wiped out when the land was mined, never returned to its natural state.

All that changed when The Wilds started its restoration of the area, including resodding with indigenous grass seed. Now, said Kellar, the land has been restored and there are lush meadows replete with flowers that attract birds, bees and butterflies. Even field mice, snakes and turtles are found on the land that was once barren.

In addition to donating the original land, AEP continues to have an active role in The Wilds. For instance, Kellar

75,000 visit The Wilds annually to see African, Asian and North American species roam the restored land.

©The Wilds

41WINTER 2009

said, the North American utility donated $30,000 to help subsidize the costs of day and overnight trips that The Wilds hosts for school children.

Another striking deal put together this year is in Florida, where the nation’s largest producer of cane sugar has agreed to a $1.75-billion deal to sell off its land and to eventually go out of business.

The deal is still pending but the agreement is for the state to buy 300 square miles of land south of Lake Okeechobee; the heartland of the wetland system. U.S. Sugar will continue to farm 187,000 acres for another six years.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist said the deal is “as monumental as the creation of our nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”

“This represents, if we’re successful, and I believe we will be, the largest conservation purchase in the history of the state of Florida,” Crist said.

U.S. Sugar CEO Robert Buker said he was saddened by the decision of U.S. Sugar, which employs 1,700 people, to close its doors. Nonetheless he said he was “excited” about the deal and what it meant for the future of Florida’s environment.

Earthjustice lobbyist Sue Mullins predicted that within six to 10 years there will be a marked improvement in the famed “River of Grass” and that South Florida’s wa-ter supply will begin to improve.

“This returns the nation’s largest wetland back to its most natural state where it provides natural water reten-tion and a natural water supply,” she said.

With competition from foreign companies affecting the price of sugar and soil issues affecting the integrity of sugar cane, Mullins said groups like hers are optimistic that the production of sugar in Florida will be limited in the future.

Still, they had no assurances that the Everglades would begin to be restored to its natural state.

“We feared most of the land would be converted to pavement, rooftops and roadways,” she said.

But while there is a slowly-evolving trend of environ-mental groups and companies working together, it doesn’t always end all disputes. In late 2007 the state of New York brokered a deal with environmental groups and a developer to allow the construction of the Belleayre Resort, a $400 million new hotel in the Catskills

This represents the largest conservation purchase in the history of

the state of Florida.

U.S. Sugar’s orange groves include numerous wildlife inhabitants.

The white-tailed doe is on of many deer that makes its home on protected U.S. Sugar property, where no hunting is allowed and violators are prosecuted.

©U.S. Sugar

©U.S. Sugar

40 ON COMMON GROUND

41WINTER 2009

Mountains. Part of the deal included the state acquiring more than 1,200 acres in the area.

The New York deal was not signed off by all environmen-tal groups and it was contested by the Catskill Heritage Alliance and homeowners near the resort, who unsuc-cessfully tried to get a court to block the arrangement.

Nonetheless there remains a campaign to challenge the construction of the Belleayre Resort.

Eric Wedemeyer, principal broker at Coldwell Banker Timberland Properties, supported the agreement, say-ing it would improve the local economy by helping to provide accommodations to those who ski in the area. Oftentimes now, Wedemeyer said, skiers come into town but then leave.

Wedemeyer, who serves on local economic development boards, says the town sorely needs the economic stimu-lus the project would bring.

“I was very hopeful that it would move forward. But sometimes the environmentalists forget the humans that are involved and sometimes corporations forget the environment is involved.”

However, for each continued challenge, there emerges successful examples of private corporations dedicated to securing our nation’s natural land resources, with the hope that others may follow suit in order to maintain the wilderness which was once privately owned and commercially used.

Christine Jordan Sexton is a freelance journalist in Tal-lahassee, Florida and over the years her works have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Business Review, Florida Medical Business and Florida Heatlh News. She has contributed to On Common Ground for the last five years.

Cirtus seedlings grown in U.S. Sugar’s new nursery are available to all growers.

The deal is “as monumental as

the creation of our nation’s first

national park, Yellowstone.”

Different varieties of sugar cane plants are developed and tested in the U.S. Sugar ResearchDepartment’s ongoing efforts to find healthier crops.

Sandhill cranes, one of many species of wildlife, make their home on U.S. Sugar land.

©U.S. Sugar

©U.S. Sugar

of a DealACherr y

It may be a reach to say that cherry pies will go the way of the dodo bird, but it helps make the point that prime farmland in this country is seriously threatened by development. As development pres-sures mount, the last crop some farmers sell is their land. Some crops, such as certain cherries, could be

jeopardized by the onslaught on agricultural land.

The American Farmland Trust (AFT) has reported that the nation is losing two acres of farmland to develop-ment every minute, about one million acres a year.

“It’s like losing the state of Maryland every five years,” said Jennifer Morrill, AFT communications director. “We’re losing our best farmland. We’re losing specific soil types which means sometime we will lose the ability to grow certain crops. Pie cherry land is being decimated in Michigan.”

“Eighty-six percent of fruits and vegetables are grown in paths of development,” she said. “We also know that the best soils in the country tend to be around cities.”

By John Van Gieson

The nation is losing two acres of

farmland to development every

minute, about one million acres

a year.

Farmers Receive Much Needed Assistance to Protect Their Land


A prime example of endangered farmland is the Traverse City, Mich., area, “The Cherry Capital of the World” thanks to a unique combination of soils and climate. The area also produces peaches, other fruits and wines — primarily Rieslings — that are rapidly gaining stat-ure among oenophiles. The AFT rates the Traverse City farming region among the 20 most endangered in the United States.

Traverse City is a rapidly growing small city that sits at the base of the 17-mile-long Old Mission Peninsula jut-ting out into Grand Traverse Bay, an arm of Lake Michi-gan named by 18th century French explorers. Peninsula Township and Acme Township on the east shore of the bay are highly productive farming areas threatened by development. “Amenity migrants,” a term coined by

University of New Hampshire demographer Ken John-son to describe people leaving urban areas for attractive rural areas where they can enjoy a high quality of life, are moving from Chicago, Detroit and other urban areas to the picture-postcard-perfect area around the bay.

“The same things that make this area so beautiful to us are what’s driving people to move here or have a second home here,” said Jennifer Jay, communications direc-tor of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC). “We’ve had tremendous growth over the last 15 years in Peninsula and Acme Townships and have seen the loss of a lot of farmland. Property values are so high because this is such a desirable area to live that the land is actually more valuable than the food grown on it.”

Property values are so high because this is such a desirable area to

live that the land is actually more valuable than the food grown on it.

Above Left: Home to Peninsula Township and Traverse City, the scenic Old Mission Peninsula projects nearly 18 miles into the Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. Above Right: Pressure for development is growing in Grand Traverse County, and many of the farms with cherry crops are being sold. Below Right: Volunteers spend the day building and shaping trails through the Arcadia Dunes Preserve in Grand Traverse County, Michigan.

©Courtesy of Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy

©Peninsula Township Planner


43

Dorrance Amos, an Acme Township farmer, said land is selling for $10,000 an acre near his farm. “That’s what I’m up against,” he told the AFT. “I’d like to add to my farm, but I can’t justify $10,000 per acre.” He’d like for his children to continue farming the land but doesn’t know if that will be possible.

Amos grows dark, sweet, tart and Maraschino cherries as well as apples, pears and plums on his farm, which was cleared by his great-great-great grandfather.

There is a national movement underway, driven by the AFT, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state and local government programs and land trusts all over the country, to protect land like Amos’ from development. Farmland protection advocates employ a number of tools to keep development from overwhelming working farms, but the most common is agriculture conservation easements.

Other popular tools in the farmland protection kit in-clude purchase of development rights (PDR), basically conservation easements, transfers of development rights from farmer to developers who get higher density bo-nuses and zoning restrictions.

The AFT reports that 49 states have agriculture ease-ment laws. Farmers typically enter into agreements not to develop their land with government agencies or land trusts. In some cases they donate the value of their land, and in others are compensated by programs such as the Federal Farmland Protection (FPP) program run by the Department of Agriculture.

When Congress passed the 2008 Farm Bill, overriding President Bush’s veto, it authorized a major expansion of FPP funding, from $499 million in 2002-07 to $743 million from 2008 to 2012. Jimmy Daukas, managing director of agriculture and the environment for AFT in Washington, D.C., said the bill benefitted farmers eligi-

Farmland protection advocates

employ a number of tools to

keep development from

overwhelming working farms.

Left: Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan. Below: Farmer Dorrance Amos is committed to helping preserve and sustain Michigan’s precious farmland.


©Peninsula Township Planner

©American Farmland Trust

44 ON COMMON GROUND

ble for FPP conservation easement grants by increasing funding and flexibility in administering the program.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” he said. “There’s a real differ-ence between protecting ranchland in Texas and protect-ing farmland outside the big cities in the Northeast.”

The Farm Bill also provided major increases in funding for farm conservation and alternative energy programs and launched a new subsidy program that gives farmers the option of receiving subsidies based on lost revenue.

Tax breaks are another financial incentive for farmers entering into conservation easements. Derek Halberg, executive director of the Tar River Land Conservancy in North Carolina, said farmers who deed their land to the conservancy for easements receive federal income tax deductions and state income tax credits. If they get FPP grants, he said, they can cut their income taxes in half and in some cases eliminate them for up to 15 years.

In Peninsula and Acme Townships, where local officials run the easement programs, voters have approved prop-erty tax increases to raise funds to pay farmers for entering into conservation easements protecting their endangered farms. Peninsula Township runs a purchase of develop-ment rights programs. Acme Township voters have ap-proved a 10-year millage increase that is expected to raise $2.8 to $3 million to pay for conservation easements.

Gordon Hayward, planning director for Peninsula Township, said the township, the GTRLC and the AFT, have all purchased conservation easements from farmers

there, protecting more than 5,000 acres of prime farm-land. The millage increases twice approved by township voters have raised $17 million in farmland protection funds so far, he said.

“The farmland values have gone up dramatically since the PDR program started,” Hayward said.

One of the largest state agricultural conservation ease-ment programs is run by the California Farmland Con-servancy Program (CFCP), a division of the California Department of Conservation. Working closely with lo-cal land trusts, the California program provides funding for conservation easements all over the state.

The California agency provided $670,625 to the Sac-ramento Valley Conservancy to purchase an easement at Winterport Farm, a 180-acre grazing and hay farm near Ione, Calif. Ione, a small city located in a rapidly-growing area about 30 miles southeast of Sacramento, was known as “Freezeout” and “Bedbug” during the California Gold Rush.

Tax breaks are another financial

incentive for farmers entering into

conservation easements.

45WINTER 2009

47WINTER 2009

Farm owner Dan Port decided he better protect his land with a conservation easement when a residential devel-oper bought 16,000 acres just north of Winterport. A residential golf course community already exists between his farm, part of an old Spanish land grant, and Ione.

Port said he’s part of a group of farmers who are trying to channel growth away from prime farmland and into the hilly land on the other side of town.

“It’s just a value system that we have, when you have prime farmland like we have here it’s really wrong to have to develop it,” Port said. “The conservation ease-ment gave us a chance to get some value out of the land without selling it.”

“We realize that development is inevitable,” said Brian Leahy, head of California’s Division of Land Resource Protection, “but we strive to direct the growth away from prime farmland when possible.”

The Tar River Land Conservancy serves an eight-county area bordering a pristine 50-mile stretch of the Tar River in an area encountering sprawl from the Raleigh/Durham metro area. Once part of the North Carolina tobacco belt, the area is transitioning to timber and grazing. Timber and tobacco farmer Ernie Averett of Oxford, N.C., was a founder of the conservancy, giv-ing up a seat on the Granville County Commission to devote more time to protecting the river, farmland and forests, some of which are virgin.

When you have prime farmland

like we have here it’s really wrong

to have to develop it.

A recent conservation easement has preserved the Winterport property to remain in use for agricultural production in Amador County, Calif. The Port Family runs the farm, which is currently being used for grazing and hay production, but also has produced pumpkins, vegetables and melons through the years.

Tobacco farm in Oxford, N.C.

46 ON COMMON GROUND

47WINTER 2009

Averett put 600 acres of his farm on the banks of the Tar River under a conservation easement, receiving grants from the FPP and the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund. He also benefits from tax incentives. Averett can selectively cut pine trees on his property but has agreed to protect a buffer of forested land along the river to help preserve its natural beauty.

“I would say we got one-third of the property value,” Averett said. “We bought more land and that land will be protected.”

“There is no funding source that is as lucrative as simply developing the property,” he added.

The decline of the housing market in Michigan, Califor-nia, North Carolina and just about everywhere else has, for the time being, substantially reduced the immediate threat to farmland, but farmland protection advocates know it won’t be long until the market recovers and pressure to develop farmland mounts again.

“You tell me when the housing market’s going to pick up, and I’ll tell you when the development pressure will start again,” Hayward said.

Even so, AFT’s Daukas sees a silver lining in the cloud hovering over many American farms.

“The best protection program for farmers is making money,” he said. “That’s one of the things that’s really changed in the last couple of years, things like higher crop prices and new renewable energy markets. Farmers are ac-tually buying land instead of selling. Farmland prices are going up, and it’s not just because of development.”

John Van Gieson is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Fla. He owns and runs Van Gieson Media Relations, Inc.

The decline of the housing

market has, for the time

being, substantially

reduced the immediate

threat to farmland.

Conservation groups say 2008 could be the best year in decades for pro-tecting some of the nation’s spec-tacular, natural areas.

They are pinning their hopes on passage of an omnibus bill in Con-

gress that could designate as many as 2 million acres for federal wilderness protection, from the giant Douglas fir trees in Oregon to the Lake Superior shoreline in Upper Michigan to the Ice Age rock formations in Virginia.

It is one of numerous efforts underway to protect natu-ral areas, among them:

• In May, President Bush signed the Wild Sky Wilderness Act into law, creating the first new national forest wilder-ness area in Washington state in more than two decades.

• The House of Representatives approved the National Landscape Conservation System Act by nearly a two-to-one margin in April, to create an organization to oversee about 26 million acres of national monuments, scenic rivers and trails and historic sites, much of which repre-sent America’s “Wild West” heritage.

By Judy NewmanThe push to leave more wild areas

untouched seems to be gaining

ground on a bipartisan basis,

O u r N a t i o n ’ s Wildlands

The fall colors grace the landscape of Johnson Ridge for miles in the Wild Sky Wilderness of Washington.

P r o t e c t i n g

´©Kent Mason


• Wrangling continues in federal district courts over the so-called Roadless Rule, a measure enacted in 2001 by the Clinton administration. The rule prohibits logging, mining or other development on 58.5 million acres across the country.

The push to leave more wild areas untouched seems to be gaining ground on a bipartisan basis, even as calls mount — in these days of soaring gasoline prices — to open more public lands to oil and gas exploration and other types of commercial development.

“The U.S. Forest Service says we lose four acres a minute of open space, (or) 2 million acres a year. So this is trying to balance the scales,” says Mike Matz, executive direc-tor of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness.

“They’re not making wilderness any more. And once we lose it, it’s gone forever,” he says.

Right now, 4.7 percent of U.S. land is protected as wil-derness, Matz says. “There’s still a ways to go. It would

be good to get up to 10 percent.” Wilderness designa-tion is an umbrella that prevents development or other intrusive use of the land. No timber sales are allowed, no commercial logging, no oil or gas leases, no mechanized travel. What you CAN do is hike, camp, fish, hunt, ride horses, graze cattle. “None of them will destroy the land,” says Matz.

Environmentalists are gaining ground in protecting pristine lands by joining forces with other interests.

“Folks have really recognized that you have to build local consensus for this. Talk to city council members and county commissioners. In the end, if there’s enough public support, enough business support, church sup-port, outdoorsmen support, then it’s easy to get a city council to pass a resolution in support of a wilderness proposal” and convince a member of Congress to bring the issue to Washington, D.C., Matz says.

They’re not making wilderness any more. Once

we lose it, it’s gone forever.

Left: Visitors admire the view of Diablo Lake in the Cascades of Washington.National Park Service

Johnson Ridge, Washington

49

51WINTER 2009

Congress protects Washington lands

It took more than eight years to get the Wild Sky Wilder-ness Act enacted. The bill designates more than 106,000 acres of forests, mountains and rivers in Washington state for the highest level of protection from development.

“There was really quite a bit of euphoria” when Presi-dent Bush signed the bill, said Barak Gale, vice president of the Washington Wilderness Coalition. Gale said the coalition worked hard for years, rallying a “very broad constituency” to support the bill, while Sen. Patty Mur-ray and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Wash-ington, helped keep the measure alive.

The land is in the Cascade Mountains, about 90 miles northeast of Seattle, and much of it is in low elevation for-est. So in addition to being a habitat for creatures such as bears and bald eagles, it is also rich with opportunities for hiking, fishing, rock climbing, rafting and kayaking.

Gale and his partner moved to Index, Wash., at the “gateway” to Wild Sky, about four years ago and ex-plored the area, hiking its trails. “I remember a particu-lar hike on the North Fork Trail, along the Skykomish River (after which the Wild Sky bill is named). I was just astounded at the size and age of the trees. It reminded me of the redwood forests of California. Douglas fir and western red cedar were everywhere you looked, and they were about 800 years old,” said Gale, owner of the Wild Lily Cabins Bed & Breakfast.

Washington state REALTORS® were among those who had worked for passage of the legislation. “We were re-

ally excited to have 20 more wildlife areas in the state,” said Bryan Wahl, government affairs director for the Washington Association of REALTORS®.

At the state level, REALTORS® have been among those taking the lead in preserving natural areas, Wahl said. The REALTORS® association was a charter member of the Washington Wildlife Recreation Coalition and two REALTORS® remain on the board of directors of the group, which involves a statewide effort to muster pub-lic and private resources to buy land and set it aside for wildlife habitat and recreation.

At the state level, Realtors have

been among those taking the

lead in preserving natural areas.

Left: Sen. Parry Murray and Rep. Rick Larson celebrate the signing into law of the Wild Sky Wilderness in May 2008. Right: Diablo Lake offers many recreational activities located in Washington’s North Cascades National Park. Below: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

National Park Service


50 ON COMMON GROUND

51WINTER 2009

“We understand the important role in real estate of quality of life,” Wahl said. “We take great pride and care in preserving our environment as best we can.” But, at the same time, the ability of property owners to buy and sell land has to be preserved, as well, he added.

“It’s a balancing act,” Wahl said. “We have to ensure there’s sufficient land to accommodate growth.”

The wild, Wild West

Fifteen proposals to add similar special protections to natural areas already owned by the federal government are highlights of an omnibus public lands bill that’s high on the priority list for conservationists. It would pre-serve another 2 million acres of federal wilderness.

“These are places of the original America, out of which we carved this great nation and by which we formed our character as a people,” says Matz.

They include some classic natural areas, such as:

• 13,700 acres in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest, with giant Douglas fir trees, the head waters of the Elk River and wild Chinook salmon runs.

• More than 128,000 acres of national forest around Mount Hood in Oregon and more than 80 miles of river that would become part of the National Wild and Scenic River System.

• About 250,000 acres of breathtaking mountains, lush valleys and pristine rivers in Colorado’s Rocky Moun-tain National Park.

• West Virginia’s first new wilderness area in 25 years: 37,000 acres in the Monongahela National Forest, a popular place for hunting, fishing and bird-watching.

These are places of the original

America, out of which we carved

this great nation and by which we

formed our character as a people.

• 55,000 acres in Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest to be designated either wilderness, a wilderness study area or national scenic area, with parts of the Appalachian Trail and rock outcroppings from the last Ice Age.

• Nearly 12,000 acres at Pictured Rocks National Lake-shore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, along the south shore of Lake Superior, featuring several miles of the North Country National Scenic Trail.

All of the 15 wilderness proposals have some bipartisan support, Matz says, as well as backing from a wide vari-ety of groups.

REALTOR® Susan Harvey is part of the coalition back-ing a proposal to protect 190,000 acres in Riverside County, Calif., add 31 miles of river to the Wild and Scenic River System and expand the Santa Rosa and San

The Wild Sky Wilderness is a 106,577-acre wilderness area in the western Cascade Range of Washington state, and it is the first new federallydesignated wilderness in Washington since 1984, protecting significant amounts of high biological productivity low-elevation forest.

53WINTER 2009

Our nation’s history preserved

The National Landscape Conservation System Act moved forward, gaining approval of the House of Rep-resentatives, but then stalled in the Senate.

More than 75 organizations have been pressing for the bill, which would establish protections for lands and wa-ters managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). About 26 million of the 264 million acres under BLM authority would be included in the new National Landscape Conservation System. To a large extent, they represent the legacy and rugged beauty of the American West.

There are national monuments, scenic rivers and histor-ic trails, such as the Lewis and Clark Trail, the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona, the Headwaters Forest Preserve in California and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

Many of the areas that would become part of the Na-tional Landscape Conservation System were designated as national monuments in the late 1990s by the Clinton administration. But there is little staff or funding to maintain them, supporters say.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act would create a way to make the designations “real and permanent,” says Myke Bybee, public lands representa-tive for the Sierra Club, in Washington, D.C. It would “secure the system’s future, give it real legal status and standing as an independent and viable system.”

Without that, “any administration could change its mind and with a memo, completely undo” the system, Bybee says.

Jacinto Mountains National Monument by 5,000 acres. The area includes portions of Joshua Tree National Park and the North Fork San Jacinto River.

“I’m so supportive of this program, putting into conser-vation property that already has certain restrictions on it. It is not jeopardizing land that is privately owned,” says Harvey, co-owner of Desert Pacific Properties in Palm Desert, Calif.

“There needs to be some type of balance” between development and protection of wilderness areas, she says, and homebuyers appreciate having nature’s beauty nearby. “It’s definitely more desirable when people are looking at higher-end development,” she says.

“It’s pretty well documented that wilderness designa-tions enhance nearby property values,” says Matz, of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness. “They become very attractive places for people to work out of in the New Economy. People want to live in areas where the quality of life is good.”

There needs to

be some type of

balance between

development and

protection of

wilderness areas.

Joshua Tree National Park


52 ON COMMON GROUND

53WINTER 2009

The Roadless Rule bars road-

building and logging on millions

of acres of national forest land.

Also important: an established system to oversee the des-ignated areas would give Congress a way to appropriate funds to maintain them.

The areas are primarily in western states, cited under the Antiquities Act, passed in 1906, to protect objects of historic or scientific interest. That’s why places such as the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, outside Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, with its Native American cliff dwellings and rock art, are included in the system.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act is also part of the omnibus Senate bill now.

Both Matz, of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, and the Sierra Club’s Bybee are optimistic about the pas-sage of the omnibus bill, although when this publication went to press, it was uncertain there would be time to act on the bill before Congress adjourned.

“There’s a lot of momentum (for the package). If they can find the time to take it up, I believe it will make it through the process,” Matz says.

Bybee says he thinks a vote is possible even during the lame-duck session, after the November elections.

“Everything we’ve heard from leadership is this is some-thing they want to get done,” says Bybee. “There are so many good things in there.”

The roads less traveled

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, adopted in 2001, bars road-building and logging on millions of acres of national forest land.

“It’s significant. We’re talking about upwards of 50 mil-lion acres … That protects a lot of areas that have not been managed over any extensive amount over the last 100 years,” says Michael Francis, director of the national forest program for The Wilderness Society.

The Bush administration repealed the rule in 2005 and let states submit petitions to create their own plans for managing roadless national forests. The repeal was struck down in court and the rule was authorized again in 2006 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte in San Francisco. But the measure has been bouncing around the courts for years.

The states of Idaho and Alaska filed suit in 2001, shortly after the rule was passed, challenging it.

In August, for the second time in five years, a federal judge in Wyoming ruled that the Roadless Rule is in-valid because it violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer said the rule creates wilderness areas but under law, only Congress can do so.

A proposed Colorado Roadless Rule would set aside more than 4 million acres of roadless land but would open the property for temporary roads for exceptions not allowed under the federal rule. Meanwhile, a new

Left: Mesa Verde, Colo.; Right: Rocky MountainNational Park, Colo.



55WINTER 2009

proposal for the state of Idaho would preserve nearly 9 million roadless acres but make another 400,000 acres available for possible logging and mining.

Environmental groups have appealed the Wyoming judge’s decision. They think there’s a “high probability” that an appeals court will stay the order.

Ed Foran, former president of the Aspen, Colo. Board of REALTORS®, said there’s “a lot of value” in maintain-ing areas without roads or cars, especially in resort com-munities. “Our economy is based on the visitor who’s coming to Aspen and the wilderness areas,” he said.

While that may seem to “fly in the face” of what many consider citizens’ rights to access public lands, “at the end of the day, it upholds what we’re trying to do,” said Foran, who has testified on the issue before a state Road-less Rule review committee. “It preserves property val-ues, without a doubt, in our area. If we open everything up, it’s going to degrade the quality of the experience of people that come from all over the world to visit, and for the people who live in these areas.”

In the meantime, the 2001 Roadless Rule still stands, says the Wilderness Society’s Francis, and he says it has worked.

“In seven and a half years, only seven miles of road has been built in roadless areas. That’s a hopeful sign,” Francis says.

He says the Roadless Rule appears to be “one of the more popular rules ever entered in the Federal Register,” generating more than 1.6 million comments.

“It enjoys tremendous public support … at the local, regional and national levels,” Francis says.

“People understand these are areas that should be pro-tected,” he says.

There is hope for our nation’s wilderness to remain wild and free and the continued preservation of our history and lands.

Judy Newman is a business reporter for the Wiscon-

sin State Journal newspaper in Madison, Wis.

In seven and a half years, only

seven miles of road has been

built in roadless areas. That’s a

hopeful sign.

Rocky Mountain National Park was created in 1915, and it is recognized as an international Biosphere Reserve which is part of the network of protected samples of the world’s major ecosystem types that is devoted to conservation of nature and genetic material.

Photo by Anthony Olegario


54 ON COMMON GROUND

55WINTER 2009

Of the total 2.27 billion acres of land that make up the mountains and valleys, the cities and country-sides of the United States, the federal government owns nearly 672 million acres, or 29.6 percent of the land. By far, the majority of federally owned lands are in the western states. These are the states with the largest, at least 30 percent, and smallest, under 2 percent, amounts of federally owned lands.

The U.S. has 155 national forests that make up a total of 188 million acres. Of those, 101 national forests, encompassing 141.3 million acres, are in the western region, from the Dakotas and Nebraska to California (not including Texas or Oklahoma). Alaska has two national forests, totaling just less than 22 million acres.

From California to the New York Island ….

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006

State Total land Owned by Percentage (1,000 acres) federal gov’t (1,000 acres)

United States 2,271,343 671,759 29.6

Nevada 70,264 64,589 91.9

Alaska 365,482 243,847 66.7

Utah 52,697 35,025 66.5

Idaho 52,933 35,136 66.4

Wyoming 62,343 31,532 50.6

Arizona 72,688 36,495 50.2

Oregon 61,599 30,639 49.7

California 100,207 46,980 46.9

Colorado 66,486 23,174 34.9

New Mexico 77,766 26,518 34.1

Montana 93,271 29,239 31.3

Washington 42,694 13,247 31.0

Connecticut 3,135 15 0.5

Iowa 35,860 303 0.8

Maine 19,848 164 0.8

New York 30,681 242 0.8

Rhode Island 677 5 0.8

Kansas 52,511 642 1.2

Ohio 26,222 458 1.7

Illinois 35,795 652 1.8

Texas 168,218 3,172 1.9 National Park Service


Developers, many who overpaid for properties during the peak of the housing boom and are faced with a shortage of both financing and buyers, are covering their losses by selling their land for conservation.

Keith Fountain, director of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy’s Florida office, said the marked drop in land prices means “opportunities for conservation are unprecedented.”

If every gray cloud has a silver lining, then perhaps every brown chunk of dirt has a green lining.

The “green” movement — gaining momentum each day as we learn to protect our forests, conserve our water sources and preserve healthy green space in urban, suburban and rural settings — is reaping

the benefits of lower land prices.

By Steve Wright

”“B o o mThe Conservation

B E T T E R C O N S E R VAT I O N O P P O R T U N I T I E S E M E R G E F R O M L O W E R L A N D P R I C E S


Florida Everglades


The suite of top priority land coming to us is absolutely unprecedented.

“Back in the real estate boom, people were speculating on Central Florida ranch-type land — buying to sell six months later at a 30 percent profit. But when the music stopped playing, they couldn’t find a chair. They don’t have the resources to carry the land, so now they need to sell.”

Fountain said not only are prices more attractive, but the availability of sensitive land is at an all-time high.

The Nature Conservancy and others have worked for years on the Kissimmee Basin, a part of Central Florida that serves as the headwaters for Lake Okeechobee.

Okeechobee feeds the Everglades and also provides the drinking water for heavily populated South Florida.

“We’ve been working with farmers to get conservation easements,” Fountain said. “In the boom, we couldn’t get ranchers to talk to us. Now, they are talking. They are looking at straight easement sales.”

Fountain said he’s now pursuing lands that variousagencies worked on years ago, but were rebuffed by unwilling sellers.

“The suite of top priority land coming to us is abso-lutely unprecedented,” he said. “Our phone rings off the hook with people wanting to sell us tracts.”

The distinctive landscape of the Everglades can be seen for miles throughout southern Florida.


©2006 Bass Online, Inc.

57

59WINTER 2009

“This allows us to focus on some real jewels,” Fountain continued. “The availability of large tracks that tie very important areas together is amazing, and in some cases, the last piece of the puzzle needed to assemble hundreds of contiguous acres of conserved lands.”

Tampa-based Bill Eshenbaugh, 2003 Land REALTOR® of America, said land conservation sales are good for the green environment and — as an option in time of stagnant sales — can lead to a pot of gold.

“It pays as a broker to sell the preservation interests and they historically can be more active in a slow market, as they can buy without the price pressure from developers,” said Eshenbaugh. “For developers, buyers will pay a premium for communities with conservation — green sells and is sustainable.”

Eshenbaugh, an avid outdoorsman who goes by the ap-ropos moniker of The Dirt Dog, said lower land prices can also create opportunities for elected officials to make more political hay.

“For politicians, it creates good will with the public and it leaves a heritage. Think about the Teddy Roosevelt influence on western parks along with the Rockefellers and Yellowstone, Grand Teton National, etc. — where the great open spaces have been preserved and the views of the Tetons maintained.”

“Here, [former Florida Governor] Jeb Bush did a great job of acquiring a lot of land including a major part of Babcock Ranch,” he said, referring to the state’s $350 million purchase of 74,000 acres, of a 92,000-acre ranch in southwest Florida’s Lee County. The largest tract of contiguous conservation lands in the state’s history, it will protect endangered species, provide a

For developers, buyers will pay

a premium for communities with

conservation — green sells and

is sustainable.

As one of the largest freshwater lakes in the United States, Lake Okeechobee is an important natural resource to Southern Florida and the Everglades.

©2006 Floridafishinglakes.net

©In Cherl Kim

58 ON COMMON GROUND

59WINTER 2009

water recharge area and ultimately, a wealth of outdoor recreational opportunities.

“Gov. [Charlie] Crist could leave a tremendous heritage if he acquires the sugar lands as planned,” Eshenbaugh said about the current Florida governor’s proposal for the state to buy thousands of acres presently farmed for sugar cane — to convert them into reservoirs and other uses needed to support the multibillion dollar Everglades restoration project. (For more information on land conservation to save the Everglades, see the State Governments Take Lead article on page 12.)

Asked if rising food prices have increased the value of farmland enough to offset its drop in value as developable land, Eshenbaugh said, “I don’t see any evidence here in Florida that that has happened.”

“However, higher corn prices probably do impact the cost of fattening out Florida beef in the Midwest feedlots. The cost of fertilizer has gone up dramatically along with diesel fuel that impacts all agricultural production from tractors to trucks to deliver to markets to diesel-driven irrigation pumps,” Eshenbaugh observed, suggesting that many farmers remain land rich but cash poor.

Several nonprofit land conservancy trust executives also stressed that not every parcel of farmland is a plot prized for preservation. Rather than shopping for pure open space, many trusts are focusing in on coastal, forest, ravine, mountain and endangered species habitat land — much of which may not be suitable for agriculture, meaning it is more affected by the drop in development value than any nationwide gain in farmland value.

“My Midwest farm broker friends tell me the price of corn and grain crop land is indeed up. It is a yield issue — when corn prices are higher and farmers can make more money, the price of high-quality, high-yield land has gone up,” Eshenbaugh said. “[But conservation] agencies tell me they are swamped with calls and submissions of land that the current owners feel would make good conservation deals as the market has dramatically slowed for development.”

Conservation agencies tell me

they are swamped with calls

and submissions of land.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL), one of the nation’s largest nonprofit land conservation organizations that pro-tects parks, historic sites, rural lands and other natural ar-eas, is reporting several lowered land price success stories.


61WINTER 2009

Tim Ahern, TPL’s director of media relations, said a flagging housing market has given rise to:

• TPL’s deal to buy a 70-acre former Camp Fire Girls park northeast of St. Paul, Minn. for $3.8 million. The Minnesota Council of Camp Fire USA decided to sell the land two years ago and had it under contract with a developer for nearly $5 million. But when the real estate market softened, the Council decided to accept a little less than 80 cents on the dollar. The action will perma-nently preserve Camp Ojiketa, once slated for housing, as open space.

• The $4 million purchase of a 27-acre parcel in suburban Portland, Ore. to be added to an existing city park. A developer had planned to build 65 homes selling in the price range of $300,000 to $375,000 on the property. But when the housing market fell, the developer decided to sell and TPL stepped in with a $1.6 million loan to help preserve the green space until several government agencies could pool funds to close on the deal.

• Ongoing negotiations to buy beachfront land on the Gulf Coast of Florida that once was destined to be a $120-million condo project. Atlantis West Development Company paid $28 million for four acres of prime land

that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Intracoastal Waterway in the small town of Indian Shores in the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg area. But the present day market value is less than half of what developers paid for it in 2005. TPL is working to buy the southern two acres of the parcel for a local park. With a fair market value shrunken to about $6 million, TPL is working with town, county and state officials to make the land preservation deal happen.

Rodney Bartgis, state director of The Nature Conser-vancy in West Virginia, said the price of protecting land is more complex than a simple downswing in real estate development.

“Those [good land deals for conservation] mostly apply to the many areas where real estate development, espe-cially housing, is the principle driver of land values,” he said. “But at least here in the Central Appalachians, it often does not apply to tracts of large, raw land acreages — the type that is often of most interest to The Nature Conservancy and similar groups.”

Bartgis said domestic and foreign investment in tim-berland is keeping prices up for large, forested tracts in prime timber production areas.

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail stretches over 14 different states from Maine down to Georgia, and is largely maintained by volunteers who patrol and monitor the footpath to ensure the land is preserved.

60 ON COMMON GROUND

61WINTER 2009

“We were attempting to acquire a 1,300-acre timber company holding this spring and were unsuccessful because we could not compete against an investment group willing to pay a price well above that previ-ously established in the local market,” he said. “So even though timber prices are down — because of less de-mand due to the housing downturn — and local lumber mills are struggling, some investors can take a 20-plus-year view of timber and are still willing to pay fairly well for the land.”

Bartgis said land used for energy resources also is im-pacting conservation in ways that weren’t a factor until the huge upward spiral in energy costs.

“On mountain tops — until recently, of value primarily for recreation and maybe timber — there is widespread leasing of land for industrial wind facilities, often at a fairly good price,” he said. “Throughout much of West Virginia, there is widespread leasing of natural gas as companies hope to tap into the Marcellus Shale, a deep source of gas not previously exploited because of the costs and technical hurdles. But with energy prices up, the Marcellus is a hot item.”

“This is land whose lease fee value otherwise would be $1,500 per acre, or even less, being [driven up] to maybe $4,000 per acre,” Bartgis continued. “So energy demand and inflation are keeping the values of much Central Ap-palachian land up. Even where the energy resources are speculative, these events are keeping land prices up because they have substantially raised landowner expectations.”

Land used for

energy resources

also is impacting

conservation in

ways that weren’t

a factor until the

huge upward spiral

in energy costs.©National Park Service

63WINTER 2009

Tim Glidden, director of the state agency Land for Maine’s Future, said “it’s not yet clear how the credit crisis and massive slowdown in residential real estate” will affect land conservation opportunities.

“State conservation strategies are focused on conserving the ‘best of the best’ and high-end real estate on Maine’s spectacular coast and lakes continues to command pre-mium prices,” he noted. “While inventory is growing in these categories, we are not seeing big price declines. On the other hand, local land trusts looking to conserve open space in and around urban centers are seeing op-portunities as developers seek to reduce their exposure and inventory of subdivision land.”

Glidden said development slowdown gives state govern-ment a breather, so it can step back from the breakneck pace and better plan for conversation and development.

Maine’s coastal areas

Development slowdown gives

state government a breather,

so it can better plan for

conversation and development.

“The need to be strategic in taking advantage of any opportunities is imperative,” he said. “Some land that might be now available should be held as inventory for future housing and commercial development — these communities will still need to grow. The opportunity is to shape, not block, that needed growth.”

Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: [email protected]

62 ON COMMON GROUND

63WINTER 2009

The sluggish real estate market also is motivating more landowners to set aside a large chunk of their land for conservation. When they put their land in a perpetual conservation easement, they can deduct the fair market value of their donated land from their federal taxes.

The IRS currently allows conservation easement donors to take a deduction up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income each year, with a 16-year time period to deduct the total value of the land. Some states also are offering tax breaks in return for donated perpetual con-servation easements.

Landowners do not have to donate their entire property and they can continue to live on and farm their land. Ba-sically, they are donating a portion — say 80 percent of 200 acres — that will have restrictions that run with the land preventing it from being subdivided and developed.

In some areas, developers are awarded density bonuses for building on only a fraction of their property if they donate the rest for an easement that preserves it perma-nently for agriculture, recreation, hunting, wetlands, nature preservation, etc. The family, or an heir, can sell the entire parcel, but the next owner knows that the lion’s share of the acreage is forever preserved from development.

Lakeland, Fla. REALTOR® Dean Saunders, an expert in representing landowners of both agriculture and conser-vation lands, helped create conservation legislation when he served in the Florida House of Representatives.

In July 2008, he completed a 3,000-acre conservation easement between a family and its private trust and the United States Department of Agriculture. The land, which is located just south of Lake Wales in Polk County, Fla., would flood seasonally and will now be part of the Wetlands Reserve Program to store water or re-hydrate what was once wetland.

Saunders is proud of his record of conserving land in Florida, and he also is a staunch advocate for private property owners’ rights.

“If the public likes looking at it, then the public should pay for it. That way you protect the public’s desire to

look at the rural land while protecting the private prop-erty rights of the land owner. Conservation easements are a great way to go. A lot of farmers don’t want to sell, so they can keep the land, but appreciate some of the increased value.”

Failed developments may be creating some good op-portunities to buy land for conservation in populated areas, but Saunders said “I have not seen panicked, fire sale prices on land.”

Saunders said in times of economic slowdowns, when state revenue collections can drop by billions, conserva-tion easements help stretch the public dollar.

“Government can’t afford to buy a whole ranch outright every time. But it can afford to pay for an easement,’’ he observed. “Another good thing with easements is that government doesn’t pay to maintain it, the private prop-erty owner does. And private landowners always manage property better than the government.”

In times of economic slowdowns

conservation easements help

stretch the public dollar.

Lower Land Prices Boost Attractiveness of Conservation Easement Sales

Agriculture and development have been destroying Florida’s natural landscape and wildlife habitat, but there is hope to preserve the remaining land with the help of conservation easements.

REALTORS® Take ActionMaking Smart Growth Happen

Wagner. “It’s our job to do what we can to help save on costs and to help save the environment.”

The groups recently collaborated on the “Change a Light, Change the World” Program, which not only helped lower utility costs for homeowners and kilowatt usage for SMUD, but the initiative also helped generate money for a SAR scholarship fund that assists deserving Sacramento area high school students.

The Sacramento Municipality Utility District provided mini compact fluorescent bulbs at deep discounts to SAR, which passed on those discounts and sold them at their SAR retail stores for just $2 a box. Last year the sales earned SAR — which is celebrating its centennial birthday — $6,460 for the scholarship fund.

“It was over the top,” SAR Director of Retail Operations Carl Carlson said of light bulb sales. “We had no idea it was going to be that good.”

The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® (SAR) goes by that creed and so does the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD).

The groups are developing what’s turned out to be a symbiotic relationship that has assisted SMUD in its efforts to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions as well as helped REALTOR® members think green so that homebuyers can save on utility costs.

Ed Hamzawi, the SMUD supervisor of energy efficiency programs, welcomes the blossoming relationship with the Sacramento Association of REALTORS® in recent years. Hamzawi views REALTORS® as the foot soldiers in California’s battle to become more energy efficient.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order that beginning in 2010 requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emission to year 2000 lev-els. Under the executive order emission levels must be reduced to 1990 levels by the year 2020 and to below 1990 levels by the year 2050.

“We are coming to the realization that there is no way we can accomplish these goals alone” said Hamzawi, who said REALTORS® are quickly emerging as a “group that SMUD can do a lot more with.”

That’s music to the ears of SAR President Alan Wagner, who said the greening of his members can only help homebuyers and build good will for REALTORS® in the community. “We know housing has gone up,” said

It’s all about Green.Saving it and making it.


REALTORS® can use the bulbs as either closing gifts or hand them out at community events they attend. The boxes are branded with both the SMUD and REALTOR® logos, as well as Olsen & Fielding, the local Mayflower moving company that helped offset the costs of the bulbs.

The program has been so successful that in 2009 SAR members will have access to deep discounts on a variety of CFL bulbs, including ones designed for decorative light fixtures in bathroom vanities as well as floodlights and spotlights, said Carlson.

Carlson also plans in 2009 to have available at retail stores hot water heater blankets that are branded with the SAR logo as well as PG&E, the investor-owned utility company. The blankets, which insulate hot water heaters, can save homeowners upward of $160 annually on their utility bills.

Carlson also intends to have on display at his retail stores solar panels provided by SMUD. Solar panels — along with other energy efficient features such as a 14 SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) HVAC system; and Energy Star windows can help reduce the electric bill in Sacramento by upward of 60 percent.

SMUD’s sister agency — the Sacramento Tree Foun-dation — is another green partner with SAR. That collaboration, where REALTORS® are encouraged to have homeowners contact the association to see if they can receive free trees, is five years old and still going strong.

“There is a lot of creativity here,” said Nelson James, the executive director of the Sacramento Association of REALTORS®. “People are not afraid to come up with ideas and enjoy themselves, and in doing so, make our area greener.”

65

REALTORS® Take ActionMaking Smart Growth Happen

Things like square footage, the number of bathrooms and bedrooms, and local area schools are standard information included in Multiple Listing Services databases that REALTORS® rely upon daily to help sell and buy homes.

After more than a year of work, REALTORS® in Asheville, N.C. will this winter be able to quickly identify other features in a home, including whether it’s green and whether it’s built with Smart Growth principles in mind.

“It expands the options buyers can search for,” said Michael Figura, chair of the Asheville Board of REALTORS® (ABR) committee that came up with the list of green features that are included in the MLS listings. Figura worked with landscape architects, engineers and contractors, among others, in defining the elements of green that will be featured in the MLS. They met more than a dozen times before agreeing to what should be included as “green.”

With such a variety of expertise at the table the result was a far-reaching definition of green that includes everything from the use of 5-star energy rated appli-ances and zero VOC paint and primer to the use of re-cycled materials and even solar panels. Smart Growth principles such as ease of access to urban centers also are included in the MLS listings.

“We are just putting it out there to allow people to check,” said Figura, who said including the informa-tion in the MLS listings also lets homebuilders know

that there is a demand for green buildings in Asheville, a town that in the last several years has been named as one of “The 50 Most Alive Places to Be” by Modern Maturity magazine, and has cracked Forbes list of the top metro areas for business and careers, ranking No. 23 in the nation.

With all the accolades and recognition, it’s no surprise that Asheville is one of the fastest growing areas in Western Carolina. ABR CEO David West said that care needs to be taken to ensure that the resulting growth is well planned and wisely built.

If not for altruistic reasons, West said, REALTORS®

have a vested interest in ensuring that the growth is well planned with an emphasis on sustainable building.

66 ON COMMON GROUND

Listed as Smart Growth Built.

“If we screw up the environment we don’t have any-thing left to sell,” said David West.

With that in mind, West in 2005 worked with Margie Meares, then executive director of the Asheville Clean Air Community Trust, and others to develop the ECO Agent program — another green initiative the ABR embraced.

Before being certified as an ECO Agent, a REAL-TOR® must take 36 hours of course work, including two core classes the ABR requires. One course focuses on issues that could impact the sale of a house, includ-ing information on soil, water, sediment and erosion issues as well as information on tax credits buyers can receive for the use of alternative energy systems.

The other course is a two-day program that offers in-depth information about the environmental issues inside and outside of a home. That program is taught by area

environmental and building professionals who work in the field, such as architects, landscapers and engineers.

The remaining elective courses can be taken for col-lege credits or as courses taught by the Western North Carolina Green Building Council, among others.

Correan Hamlin, director of education for ABR, said that 75 REALTORS® have received their certification to date and another 225 or so are in the queue to com-plete the required course work.

Surprisingly, said Hamlin, there is no “trend” among REALTORS® taking the classes. Older, younger, men, women, new REALTORS® and long time agents have all signed up for the course.

“The truth of the matter is, I see men and women of all ages (in the classes),” said Hamlin. “It’s had a pretty wide appeal.”

67WINTER 2009

on common groundREALTORS® & Smart Growth