This Land (Trust) is Your Land
by Leonard Shapiro
The Land Trust of Virginia (LTV) will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year and board chair Carole Taylor is properly proud of the work being done to protect and conserve the precious land of Loudoun and Fauquier counties, along with projects in several other nearby jurisdictions.
Over the years, LTV has taken steps to transition nearly 15,000 acres intoconservation easement, ranging from farms to battlefields to forests to scenic byways. That assures limited to no development will take place in perpetuity on all that land, and Taylor would like to believe there will be many more acres to come.
“The public benefits from conservation easements are many,” said Taylor, a long-time Middleburg realtor who now lives in the Warrenton area. “Helping landowners protect their land benefits us all in the form of protecting important natural resources, open space, farm production, clean air, clean water, and our Virginia historical sites. There is still the pressure of development. We work with landowners who voluntarily want to protect the land they love so much and still maintain ownership and control.”
The LTV has had much of its success working with the owners of smaller parcels, properties with open space and possibly historic attributes, as well. They’re also interested in land that serves as buffers to rural villages and she emphasized that “you don’t need 150 acres to qualify for easements.”
“If you look at the reasons landowners find it valuable to do a conservation easement, they’re interested in preserving the land for future generations. And there are other benefits, as well. In Virginia there is a tax credit program. Conservation easements are not just for wealthy landowners.”
Taylor said the preponderance of properties under its purview are active farms. This past December, Congress also passed a bull to provide an enhanced tax deduction for conservation easement. “If a taxpayer qualifies,” she said, “they can carry the deduction forward for 15 years” which offers another incentive to consider an easement.
“People come to us, we don’t pursue them,” she added. “It’s all voluntary. We will meet with the landowner, evaluate the property for its conservation values and then proceed from there. Not everyone qualifies and each one is a different negotiation. And it’s always our approach to find out what the landowner wants to accomplish.
“If you put your property into easement, you can still sell it. You always have control over it, subject to certain restrictions. For example, you may give up some development rights because the easement is permanent. It’s a matter of public record, so that the person who buys the property will know the restrictions.”
LTV also has embarked on several other projects and is looking to extend its reach to other nearby counties.
They initiated their first public access easement in the city of Fredericksburg. It’s a small, three-acre parcel inside the city limit where children can learn to garden. It’s called “Downtown Greens” and marks the first time LTV has tried an urban approach. The property is owned by Downtown Greens, a small non-profit and the City wholeheartedly supported the easement process. Taylor said, “it’s a space that will now be protected forever. It’s a great model and we hope other towns will see it in the same way.”
Under the leadership of LTV Vice Chair Chris Dematatis, LTV completed a study, funded with a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment, that examined the steep slopes and farmland on both sides of the Blue Ridge mountains to understand things like soil type, forestation and the patterns of land ownership in those areas.
This year LTV will be conducting rural village and fox hunting territory studies to help communities and organizations understand the “lay of the land” immediately surrounding them. Villages like Markham and Rectortown are likely to be studied in the near future and, Taylor said, “we are able to process this information and share it so people can make decisions and take action.”
Like all her fellow board members, Taylor is a volunteer in the organization now based in Middleburg. As its chair, she sees her role as “guiding the board and the staff in strategy and operations.”
Leslie VanSant of Middleburg joined LTV as executive director in 2015, bringing more than 20 years non-profit leadership and communication experience to the table. Ashton Cole has been LTV’s director of conservation and stewardship since 2007 and is responsible for working with landowners, monitoring easement properties and drafting and negotiating new easement projects among other responsibilities.
“Our countryside is just so beautiful,” Carole Taylor said. “We want to make sure it stays that way.”