Conservation easements are a cost effective way to keep open space open. Under such easements, landowners maintain ownership of their land but give up all development potential for it.
Summit Land Conservancy Executive Director Cheryl Fox says she’s pleased to have heard from some Kamas Valley landowners who are interested in talking...
“We've really been working for a long time to try to find landowners in the Kamas Valley who would be interested in conservation easements,” she said. “And, you know, we've done a lot of work in Oakley, along the Oakley River corridor with our Marchant Meadows and things like that. But anyway, over the last few months, we have had increasingly increasing interest from landowners in the Kamas valley in the Kamas meadows, and we're really excited about that, because what we heard when we were out talking about the proposed Summit County general obligation open space bond, we heard a lot of people concerned about those green meadows.”
Conservation easements are much more affordable that outright ownership, Fox says, meaning open space dollars can go farther.
“A conservation easement means that we just buy the development rights. And that's more affordable than buying the fee title, the whole thing. So, for example, with Marchant Meadows, those landowners did not want to continue in agriculture anymore. So, their choice was to sell, and we had to figure out how to come up with all the money to buy the title on that property.”
While open space is guaranteed under a conservation easement, public access isn’t. Fox says it depends on the deal they work out with property owners...
“Public access is never guaranteed, and it's never required,” Fox said. “It is entirely up to the landowner to make the decision that yes, we can find a balance and, and we can allow public access. And in some cases, for example, projects that we've done along the Weber River, the landowners have granted public access in a trail easement to the river. So, people can't walk all over the property, you know again, it's a working land, it's working soils, people have equipment out there. So, it's not sort of an unfettered free for all.”
Fox says conservation easements save more than just open space. They protect viewsheds, wildlife habitat and can help sequester carbon by preventing development.
