Group Recommends Tools for Saving Open Space, Implementation Key

By Matthew Frank, 7-11-06

The Missoula County Open Lands Working Group released a detailed 127-page report to the Missoula Board of County Commissioners on Monday recommending ways in which Missoula County can preserve its “open land and county character” in the face of relentless development pressures.

The report, culled from 15 months of research and citizen outreach by 18 landowners (two from each of the nine planning regions within Missoula County) facilitated by the Five Valley Land Trust, outlines “tools” Missoula County citizens can use “to protect agricultural lands, timberland, open space, wildlife habitat, wetland and riparian resources, or public access” – simply, the very things that make Missoula County a wonderful place to live.

Ranking high on the list of tools are conservation easements, a clearinghouse for rural landowners, natural resource regulations, and the recognition of unique/historic landscapes. Other recommendations include subdivision regulation with mitigation requirements, zoning, income tax credits for conservation easements, and estate planning assistance, among many others.

The report suggests as well that Missoula County take immediate steps to effectively implement the recommended tools. These include the creation of an Open Lands Board and Open Lands Program within the county’s existing Rural Initiatives Program, the production of a long-term open-lands conservation work plan, seeking support for necessary state-level legislation changes, and the procurement of funding to support critical open-land programs.

On Monday night, at a potluck on Denny and Charlotte Iverson’s ranch in Potomac, the Working Group officially presented its findings to the Board of County Commissioners. “It takes this kind of effort,” beamed Missoula County Commissioner Bill Carey, the group members and county commissioners sitting at picnic tables and on hay bales. “We can do something new. We can do something different. And I thank you all very much for being a part of it.”

“We need to wake some people up,” Carey said. “There is a problem, a real risk of losing so much of what we all value.” In weathering the forces that challenge their viability, farmers and ranchers need to know, he says, that “they’re not alone in their hopes and fears, in dealing with these problems.”

While the mood of the evening was very positive, almost celebratory, the group acknowledged that the work has just begun. “I would say, still, that there is much we still need to learn,” said Hugh Sheehy, a landowner from the Potomac/Greenough region and part of the working group.

The overall sentiment was this: the report on its own does nothing -- someone needs to enact it.

And the proposed $10 million open space bond, coming to your ballot in November, would help. Should it pass, the bond would be split between the Missoula planning region (an area that stretches far beyond the city limits) and the other planning regions which include Ninemile, Frenchtown and Huson, Lolo, Clinton and Turah, Potomac/Greenough, Evaro, Seeley Lake, and Swan.

The Five Valleys Land Trust and Missoula County are working to extend their existing contract through November. Between now and then, they hope to do one more round of citizen outreach and additional research and planning. The most important thing, though, said Working Group consultant Donna Erickson, is keeping the momentum going. Momentum, Erickson and Five Valleys Land Trust Executive Director Wendy Ninteman say, is the key to the report’s recommendations being implemented.

As the Working Groups highest-ranked tool for preserving open space, the conservation easement will play an important role as Missoula County and its citizens work to save agriculturally and ecologically valuable land from development. But the conservation easement has its downfalls. For one, it grants greater tax savings to high-income landowners than to land-rich and cash-poor farmers and ranchers, making it much less desirable to landowners feeling the pressure to sell to developers. (As detailed in the May 2005 issue of High Country News, the same $500,000 conservation easement saves a high-income landowner $157,500, a low-income landowner only $9,450.)

To make conservation easements a viable tool for lower-income landowners, too, says Ninteman, income tax credits can be used, and they’re one of the things recommended by the Working Group. Income tax credits are usually equal to the value of the conservation easement, and can be sold to high-income people who could use a reduction on their tax bill.

“Farmers and ranchers feel the conservation easement isn’t a tool unless they can be compensated,” said Ninteman.

The report recognizes that the best way to keep land in agricultural use – the best way to encourage “cows, not condos,” as a popular bumper sticker insists – is to make farming and ranching profitable.

You can download the Recommendations to the Missoula Board of County Commissioners by the Missoula County Open Lands Working group in its entirety at the Five Valleys Land Trust webpage at fvlt.org.
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