[va-richmond-general] Re: Fwd: Habitat protection

Robin, I would suggest that this person begin by talking to the management of 
the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which holds most of Virginia's conservation 
easements. I believe the 20 acre limit may not be from the Code of Virginia. It 
may be a policy decision, based on a simple fact of resources. It takes just as 
much human resource time and effort to create an easement on 5 acres as it does 
on 20, and right now there are just not enough resources (money for staff) 
allocated to the groups like VOF who write easements to keep up with the 
demand. I could be wrong about this, but the VOF staff will know. The director 
of VOF is Bob Lee.
Some counties (like Hanover where I live) have open-space or forest or farmland 
tax deferral programs where the owner gets taxes deferred to the farmland rate 
in exchange for agreeing to not develop the land. Those deferred taxes would 
have to be paid by anyone who buys the land for development, which discourages 
buyers.  In Hanover there is a 5 acre lower limit for the open space category.  
So this could be a situation that could be tackled at the county level for some 
relief.
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: robin.ruth@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:14 AM
Subject: [va-richmond-general] Fwd: Habitat protection


Could anyone suggest whom this person could talk to about legislation to allow 
small land owners to put their land into land easements? 
Robin



Begin forwarded message:


From: WNash29136@xxxxxxx
Date: June 27, 2007 11:02:29 AM EDT
To: robin.ruth@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Habitat protection


I live in Amherst County and we are losing much of our land to developers. We 
small land owners would like to be able to put our land into land easements, 
but as of now it has to be 20 acres. Is there anyway to start legislation for 
those with as little as 5 acres or less to be able to put their land in a 
easement to protect the wildlife? How do you get the legislation started? 5 
acres is a nice little parcel and if it your land, you should be able to put in 
an easemnt if you want to. We desperatly need  legislation to allow those witha 
few acres to do this. The wildlife needs help now. After the land is gone, it 
will be too late. Thanks, WNash


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