2009.10.12
Conservation easements: The untouchable two and a half percent of Virginia
Since 1968, more than 2.5 percent of all the land area in Virginia has been put off limits from development using conservation easements.
That’s 687,117 acres under easement out of 27.3 million acres in the state, according to data from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. (And it doesn’t include other kinds of protected lands, like national parks, national forests, state parks, wildlife refuges and so on.)
I learned all this doing data work for a story by Rex Bowman about Gov. Tim Kaine nearing his goal of preserving 400,000 acres during his term, which began in January 2006 and ends in January 2010.
The tally toward Kaine’s goal was about 352,000 acres as of September. Only thing is, as Rex and I discovered in analyzing the data on over 4,000 easements on record with the DCR, Kaine is including almost 50,000 acres put under easements during the last six months of 2005 — when Mark Warner was governor.
Kaine’s people say they include that period because it’s the first half of the fiscal year, which runs from July 2005 through June 2006. But by that reasoning, they should have stopped counting toward Kaine’s goal on June 30, 2009, and they haven’t. So, really, Kaine is giving himself a 4-and-a-half year window, when his term as governor is only four years.
Still, it’s a major achievement, and one of the most significant of Kaine’s tenure. The number of acres protected by easements has nearly doubled during Kaine’s time in the mansion. Easements added during Kaine’s term add up to something nearly twice the size of Roanoke County.
Even Kaine’s nemesis, House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) called that a good thing – through while knocking Kaine for mathematical chicanery.
Where are all these easements? How convenient you should ask. In the process of working on Rex’s story, I developed a couple of maps that didn’t make it into the paper. I thought I’d share them here.
Here’s a density map colored by how many acres are under easement in each city and county. The numbers in the legend are numbers of acres. Note that the lightest color is for localities that have no easements.
Less useful, but just so you can see it, is this map, showing where the easements are. There are more than 4,000 easements, and zoomed out this far, they all run together, but you can still get an idea of where they are just by the density of them. That clump up there in Northern Virginia is on the border of Fauquier and Loudon counties.
I would be interested to see some facts and figures on WHO the property owners are that have qualified for these easements. My husband and I are from Bland County and have applied twice. It is our distinct impression that “the little people” are not the ones who benefit from this program.
Comment by Luv2Ride — October 12, 2009 @ 8:25 am
I wonder if part of the answer to your question might be in Rex’s story, which includes this quote from Rupert Cutler of the Western Virginia Land Trust, based in Roanoke:
“The tax credits pushed preservation, as did development pressure. Kaine further intensified the use of easements by promoting them statewide and enlisting various state agencies to persuade landowners to use them. Today, Cutler said, the [Virginia] Outdoors Foundation has a ‘backlog’ of hundreds of property owners waiting to put their land in an easement.”
It seems the push to put land under easement has created desire to do so that is outstripping the capacity of agencies which take on easements.
Comment by Matt Chittum — October 12, 2009 @ 11:07 am
In addition, due the high demand, the VOF has put some minimum requirements such as the proposed easement in general must be at least 100 acres. Being less is the number 1 reason for denial. If by “little people”, you mean people with less than 100 acres, then you are correct. The proposed easement must also fit with your counties comprehensive plan. If it doesn’t, that’s another big reason for denial. There are many other possible restrictions that are more site-specific that could be an issue.
Comment by Chris in Floyd — October 14, 2009 @ 8:56 am
[...] Conservation easements: The untouchable two and a half percent of Virginia | Roanoke.com Since 1968, more than 2.5 percent of all the land area in Virginia has been put off limits from development using conservation easements. [...]
Pingback by Virginia Roundup | Bacons Rebellion — October 14, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
putting aside land that remains in private ownership without a specific public benefit in patchwork patterns is not conservation IMHO.
The land itself needs to have some particular significance that can be defined and assessed so that we can rank the candidate properties rather than have this free-for-all, first-come, first served lottery for tax reduction which is what it is being used for rather than meeting a specific policy for conserving land for specific reasons.
the patchwork aspect is really the worst of all worlds as what you are really doing in increasing the price of adjacent non-conserved property – insuring that it will be developed because it has a next-door amenity – undevelopable land.
If anyone has any doubts about how this works I’d invite you to visit some of our more prominent battlefields and see what has happened at their borders.
Comment by LarryG — October 15, 2009 @ 10:26 am
Dear Matt, I have spent the last 7 1/2 years working with landowners across Southwest Virginia to protect their family farms, productive forests and the scenic landscape – especially along the New River – that defines our region. An example of the type of landowner we help is a lifelong farmer in Floyd. Instead of selling his farm for development – which would have been costly to Floyd taxpayers who would have subsidized the cost of public services – he placed his farm under easement because it has prime soils, productive timber and is his family homeplace. The modest amount of money he got from his tax credits meant he needed a savings account for the first time in 25 years of farming. Most of our easements are completed with family farmers whose land has been in their family for years; many of them are struggling to hold onto their land in an economy that is brutal for local farmers. For the Virginia Outdoors Foundation to hold an easement on land, it must comply with a county’s comprehensive plan – in other words, these easements are placed on land that the county has already designated to remain as farm land, forest, wildlife habitat, recreational corridor, etc. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation would LOVE to take easements on farms that are less than 100 acres. In fact, we are working with them now on a proposal to take smaller easements in the historic and scenic Catawba Valley. The incredibly committed VOF staffers face the same problem that you do, Matt, as a respected reporter. My guess is that you have 20-30 stories sitting on your wish list that you would like to write, but you don’t have the time and the Roanoke Times doesn’t have the staff capacity to re-assign those story ideas to someone else. You and your editor review your ideas and set priorities. VOF has to do the same. The VOF has broken records in the past years for conserving land – and are simply asked to do more and more. They are more frustrated by the waiting list for properties under 100 acres than anyone else. The answer? Let’s fund this agency and hire more staff so we can do that easement in Bland County. [I'd love for that couple to call me and we'll try to find an answer for them.] We also work with the Dept.of Forestry, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the National Committee for the New River to find other agencies that can hold easements if the property cannot get on VOF’s list right away. In addition to protecting our farms so we can have local foods, sustain our forests, which are signficant to our state’s economy, etc etc., easements are also a benefit to local taxpayers in the community. Open space is almost always revenue positive for a locality – cows don’t call the sheriff or go to school. A new subdivision is almost always tax negative – in other words, you as a local taxpayer subsidize each new house unless it is a Mac Mansion without school children. Each easement the VOF takes, also requires monitoring. The IRS requires it. Imagine a state agency that added 4,000 buses. They would have to increase their maintenance staff. VOF has just added 400,000 acres. They need increased staff to handle the demand for easements as well s to monitor the thousands of additional protected acres. We are fortunate that land conservation has bipartisan support. We are Virginians, and our heritage is interwoven with our land. Just this past month, VOF and Historic Resources completed an easement to protect Mary Draper Ingles’ 1772 tavern and 300 acre farm along one mile of the New River. This is typical of the fine work that VOF does. I say hooray for their heroic efforts that have broken land conservation records in the past three years. Future generations will benefit.
Beth Obenshain
Comment by Beth Obenshain — October 18, 2009 @ 4:27 pm