Land kept open for good along the Alder River · since 1991
Keep your land a farm or a forest, and keep it yours.
A conservation easement is a promise, recorded with the deed, that the land will not be subdivided or paved. You keep owning it, farming it, living on it and selling it. The trust keeps the promise, and walks the land once a year to check.
What an easement is
You and the trust agree, in writing, which uses stay and which end: farming, forestry and a home usually stay; new lots and development usually end. The agreement is recorded with the county and binds every future owner.
Easement land stays private. Nobody gets a right to walk on it unless the owner chooses that. That is why the land we protect this way never appears on our maps.
What it costs a landowner
Usually a survey, a baseline report of what is on the land today, the landowner’s own lawyer and appraiser, and a one-time contribution to the stewardship fund that pays for monitoring forever. We put our part in writing after the first walk, before anyone signs anything.
The steps
- A conversation. By phone or at your kitchen table. Nothing is decided.
- A walk of the land together. What matters to you, what the trust could hold.
- A draft agreement. Reviewed by your own lawyer; you decide what stays allowed.
- The baseline report. Photographs and notes of the land on the day the easement begins, signed by both of us.
- Recording, then every year after. The easement is recorded with the county; the trust visits once a year, forever.
Every easement, walked every year.
A steward walks each property once a year with the owner’s notice, compares it with the baseline report, and writes up what changed. The notes stay in our stewardship records. Here we show only the count.
About taxes: what we can say
Donating an easement can be a charitable gift. If you claim it, the IRS asks for Form 8283 with a qualified appraisal that you arrange; the trust signs Part V to acknowledge that it received the gift. That signature does not agree with the value.
We do not give tax, legal or appraisal advice, and this site has no calculator. Your own advisers answer what a gift would mean for you.
Talk to the land protection manager
Call (555) 010-0191, write to 118 Front Street, Kettleford, or leave a name and a good time and we will call you.