LOWER LAND PRICES BOOST ATTRACTIVENESS

LOWER LAND PRICES BOOST ATTRACTIVENESS
OF CONSERVATION EASEMENT SALES

By Steve Wright

The sluggish real estate market also is motivating more landowners to donate a large chunk of their land for conservation. When they donate land for a perpetual conservation easement, they can deduct the fair market value of their donated land from their federal taxes.

The IRS currently allows conservation easement donors to take a deduction up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income each year, with a 16-year time period to deduct out the total value of the land. Some states also are offering tax breaks in return for donated perpetual conservation easements.

Landowners do not have to donate their entire property and they can continue to live on and farm their land. Basically, they are donating a portion -- say 80 percent of 200 acres -- that will have restrictions that run with the land preventing it from being subdivided and developed.

In some areas, developers are awarded density bonuses for building on only a fraction of their property if they donate the rest for an easement that preserves it permanently for agriculture, recreation, hunting, wetlands, nature preservation, etc. The family, or an heir, can sell the entire parcel, but the next owner knows that the lion’s share of the acreage is forever preserved from development.

Lakeland, Florida Realtor Dean Saunders, an expert in representing land for both agriculture and conservation, helped create conservation legislation when he served in the Florida House of Representatives.

Very recently, he helped a client to sell more than 1,600 acres to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission for $11.6 million. The vast acreage, located in rural Osceola County, Florida, sits next to the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area in the Kissimmee Prairie, one of the largest remaining expanses of dry prairie in the United States.

Saunders is proud of his record of conserving land in Florida and he also is a staunch advocate for private property owner’s rights.

“If the public likes looking at it, then the public should pay for it,” That way you protect the public’s desire to look at the rural land while protecting the private property rights of the land owner. Conservation easements are a great way to go. A lot of farmers don’t want to sell, so they can keep the land, but appreciate some of the increased value.”

Failed developments may be creating some good opportunities to buy land for conservation in populated areas, but Saunders said “I have not seen panicked, fire sale prices on land.

Saunders said in times of economic slowdowns, when state revenue collections can drop by billions, conservation easements help stretch the public dollar.

“Government can afford to buy a whole ranch outright every time. But it can afford to pay for an easement,’’ he observed. “Another good thing with easements is that government doesn’t pay to maintain it, the private property owner does. And private land owners always manage property better than the government.”

Wright frequently writes about Smart Growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: stevewright64@yahoo.com