The Truth about Conservation Easements and How They Take Away Your Rights
Municipal, county, and state government agencies are contracting with private non-profit organizations with one goal in mind – to dole out conservation easements. For private landowners, red flags should go up immediately. Conservation easements completely change the way we own land.
(PRWEB) February 25, 2005 -- A recently announced alliance between a local
government water authority and a land trust included a statement about how they
planned to conserve land and protect water. Their alleged goal is to “help
landowners create conservation easements on their property that will ensure the
property is managed according to the owner’s wishes far into the future.”
However, that isn’t entirely true.
Similar alliances are occurring in
hundreds, maybe thousands of locations nationwide. Municipal, county, and state
government agencies are contracting with private non-profit organizations with
one goal in mind – to dole out conservation easements.
For private
landowners, red flags should go up immediately! Conservation easements
completely change the way we own our property.
Conservation easements take away part or all of the bundle of property
rights originally transferred when a landowner purchased real property. Those
rights include the right to possess, use, modify, develop, lease, or sell your
land. In a conservation easement, Landowners give up some, if not all, of those
rights, leaving them powerless to control the use of their land but still
obligated to pay taxes. In other words, the landowner becomes a subservient
owner of his own land, which is now managed and controlled - forever - by a new
partner.
Property includes land, water and minerals and they are what
give meaning to the bundle of rights. Conservation easements give land trusts or
government entities the authority to manage and control these rights and pay the
landowner a reduced amount for his property without “taking” it. As a landowner,
you are still physically living or working the land, but you have to abide by
somebody else’s rules.
True, conservation
easements are voluntary; but once these agencies set their sites on a specific
piece of land, the landowner is left with few options, none of which can be
classified as “voluntary.” It’s called greenlining and it’s happening
everywhere.
Landowners are notified that they
are located inside a particular area desired to be “protected” and their land
will be regulated or maybe taken by eminent domain. The only option given the
landowner is to take their “offer” and the only thing being offered is a
conservation easement. Every year, hundreds of landowners are “forced” to sell
their rights to a land trust or a land use, resource-based government agency.
Conservation easements are legally binding contracts that last forever –
they are “in perpetuity.” The IRS must approve the offer before the landowner
can get the tax incentives and abatements, but the outcome is always the same, a
third party will take over control and management of the property.
The
effect of placing a conservation easement on a piece of property is to
substantially lower its value by reducing or restricting its use. Landowners who
need quick cash and a tax reduction find these plans attractive for a short term
fix. The property, however, will never be the same.
Taking such a step
will bring a one time benefit, but the conservation easement attaches to your
property forever. It cannot be changed, except by the government, as affirmed by
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Big Meadows Grazing Association v. United
States.
In that case, the Court said; “Specifically, Big Meadows
relinquished all rights not expressly reserved in…the easement,” which
“expressly reserved in Big Meadows only record title…,” but “it nowhere grants
Big Meadows the power to veto a conservation plan of which it disapproves.”
Big Meadows gave up its bundle of rights and was left with virtually
nothing but the bills. The government modified the amount of money Big Meadows
would have to spend to implement the conservation plan and the Court said Big
Meadows had to oblige.
A conservation easement can be enforced by the
holder or a third party like the Environmental Defense, who don’t think your
land is being managed properly. It can be transferred at anytime to another land
trust or government agency. And, it determines management practices and
landowner’s obligations.
A conservation easement is also, in effect, a
quasi databank that others can use when searching for suitable habitat. That is,
when habitat is destroyed for development of any kind, the law, called
mitigation, requires other land to be set aside as a replacement. Land in a
conservation easement, even if it is 500 miles away, can be condemned and used
to replace the property lost. Landowners who have taken a conservation easement
have made their property ripe for picking in such situations.
Landowners
who are offered conservation easements by agencies who claim they are “here to
help you,” must read the fine print . . . because once the papers are signed,
the landowner has lost his rights forever.
Dan Byfield is president of
the American Land Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting
private property, liberty and free enterprise.
# # #
Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb211918.htm