WORKING THE SYSTEM

Conservation Easements: Good for the Land, but Tax Losses Mount

By Headwaters News, 12-27-06

As more ranchland and open, undeveloped private land is converted into homes and communities, the loss of such "open space" is becoming a bigger issue in the West. Perhaps the best defense against such loss is the conservation easement - a legal, binding agreement by a landowner to forfeit his or her rights to develop the land. All conservation easements are a bit different, administered by different groups and written with different terms, though most provide some sort of a tax break to the landowner in exchange for giving up development rights.

These easements are widely popular conservation tools because they offer benefits to the landowner and to the land. In Montana, The Nature Conservancy and the Blackfoot Challenge are using conservation easements to help secure and keep land free from development in the Blackfoot Valley.

The two groups' goal here is to protect 88,000 acres of land in Montana now owned by Plum Creek Timber Company. So far, the Blackfoot Community Project has secured 68,076 acres, including 13,970 acres recently purchased by The Nature Conservancy of Montana. And The Nature Conservancy has options on another 20,000 acres. But once the groups secure the acres, they then have to do something with them.

So, they add conservation easements to many of the acres and then offer them up for sale. The buyers in this case range from the federal Bureau of Land Management to the state to private owners. But because of the easements, the lands can't be developed - though often there are allowances for a building or two. Funding schemes vary with the buyer and may take some time to complete, but the end result is more protection for the land.

In Colorado, conservation easements have become so popular that, since 2000, reports the Grand Junction Sentinel, around 38 land trusts have protected more than 620,000 privately owned acres, which is 183 percent more than the amount of protected private land before then. The state is number three behind California and Maine in the number of acres protected using conservation easements, which makes many conservationists very happy.

But the state may not be faring so well. An article last week from the Denver Rocky Mountain News and an op-ed today shed some light on how the state may be being shafted in the whole deal.

Since implementing its conservation easement tax program six years ago, the state has lost millions of dollars in revenue. In 2002, it was just $2.3 million, but in 2005, that lost revenue had climbed to $85.1 million - which is surely more than lawmakers intended. Additionally, says the op-ed, the state has no effective way of knowing where the lands are, or if the state is getting taken for a ride, as there is evidence that there are some who are illegally manipulating the system.

Shady deals have long lingered in the shadows of conservation easements. Congress tried to tackle the issue a few years ago when The Nature Conservancy was investigated, and the Rocky Mountain News thinks the Colorado Legislature should do the same this year.
[End of article]

It is way past time that someone started looking at conservation easements and transfering private land to "our public land". Now that the government is stopping PLT payments to the states, every transfer is an extra tax burden put on the backs of residents of the state where this occurs. Of course those paying for this burden have no say over the use of the lands, they are being pushed off by the greedy environmentalists that feel they alone are entitled to use them....for free.

Which is worse? An environmentalist that keeps a piece of land un-developed, producing clean air, clean water and aesthetic beauty for everyone, or a greedy developer who wants to extract a resource or cut that piece of land up into unsustainable ranchettes for his own personal profit at the expense of clean air, clean water and the aesthetic beauty of the land. The greedy developer pushes off the cost of his action on everyone around him. The roads and infrastructure that must be built and maintained at the public expense for his profit; the air, water and noise pollution that must be absorbed and managed at the public expense for his profit; the negative impacts to plant, wildlife and human habitat that degrades the quality of life for everyone, all for the sake of the greedy developer’s profit. Which costs the public more really? Conservation easements are one of the finest things a land owner can do for their community and for the next generations that will live on this land. The world doesn’t cease to exist when we die, hopefully people will live here for thousands of years to come. Do you want to leave a polluted factory or a garden for children to live in?

Well let's answer questions with questions. Do you live in a house? Built by one of those "greedy developers"? Are you willing to give it away so you don't make any of that nasty money from it and live in the open? Do you want your children to have a home someday or live with you in a cave so no houses have to be built? Where do you plan to have these people live for thousands of years to come?
What is your alternative to building homes for folks? Living in caves, tents, on the streets? Where do you expect hem to go to the bathroom, on the streets, in the forests, sagebrush, city parks?
Few people can build their own homes today, so we NEED developers, greedy or otherwise. All of the clean air, forests etc are no good if folks have to huddle in them without shelter or heat.
It is unfair for one person to be able to get a tax credit for a conservation easement by making his neighbor make up the difference. The group getting the CE should be required to pay the same tax rate on the property, that would replace the revenue, and make it fair.

Fewer people making fewer demands on our planet is where solving the development crisis begins. Everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. So how come Congress isn't also going after Shell, ExxonMobil, etc.? Is it because TNC didn't pay their "fair share" in campaign contributions?

So Marion, if you would have your way city parks would be covered in apartment buildings because the city could tax it adequately? What about our National Parks and Wilderness Areas, should we mine and log those because they don’t bring the revenue they could now. Please don't defend the altruistic developers for their sacrifice to humanity; I work with these folks often enough to know they develop for one reason, their own profit. The tax credit for conservation easements is just and fair considering the trade off. The development that the land would be subject to otherwise, would cost the tax payers much more then the tax revenue it would produce. The utilities and infrastructure required to develop land is much more costly for rural land then the property taxes that land generates. While the state, or county may loose some potential revenue from conservation easements they save money at the same time. The net difference is a benefit for the community not a cost.

Also Marion, you should think about sustainable solutions to the problems you claim are only solvable by unregulated development. Each of your questions assumes a lot that is simply not true. The real answers and sustainable solutions to those problems are available you just have to be willing to hear them.

Tim, can you point out where I advocated building houses in a city park? On the other hand, it might be preferable to the homeless sleeping and defecating in them. I am referring to private property
Please point out any unregulated development that I advocated. The first thing might be to get rid of all private single family dwellings over 2500 sq feet, and perhaps those that want to keep them be required to share with folks who have no homes. That would certainly apply to those who do not want any homes built.Certainly I have as much right to tell you what to do with your property, as you do to tell me what to do with my property.
Once more, can you explain how folks will have homes if there are no developers?