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The
Truth About Conservation Easements: How They Take
Away Your Rights
by
Dan Byfield
Sustainable
Development / Sustainable Development
Date: Apr 19, 2005 - 02:26 PM
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Smooth
salesmen and lawyers representing land trusts,
environmental organizations and government agencies
are swooping down upon America’s beleaguered and
highly regulated rural landowners. With a smile, some
cash and a contract America's landowners, are rapidly
turning over citizen control of natural resources to
powers controlled by the New World Order.
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 land is owned and managed.
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 take away part of or the entire
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
(http://www.libertymatters.org/alf.htm), a non-profit
organization dedicated to protecting private property,
liberty and free enterprise.
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This
article comes from Advance Bulletin News &
Commentary
http://www.freedom21santacruz.net/advance/html/
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