[Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions

[David Diaz]

You might be able to cover those bases by getting the Wallkill Valley Land
Trust named as Third Party Enforcement.  Under that section you could define
the rights that WVLT has, especially as it relates to amendments, violations
and monitoring.  Not sure about the extinguishment of some or all of the
restrictions, I wonder if a municipality would legally be permitted to
lessen their right to eminent domain.  If they are I would guess they would
avoid it like the plague. 


David M. Diaz
Conservation Easement Manager
Scenic Hudson, Inc. 
Tel: 845 473 4440 x223 
Fax: 845 473 2648 
ddiaz at scenichudson.org 
Your Valley. Your Voice. Your Future.
__________________________________________________________ 
Just beyond imagination is... ART IN THE PARK
Got creative students or kids? 
Let them show off their stuff!
Full details on our Web site: 
www.scenichudson.org 




-----Original Message-----
From: hvcatskillcewg-bounces at lists.ltanet.org
[mailto:hvcatskillcewg-bounces at lists.ltanet.org] On Behalf Of Lynn Bowdery
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:25 PM
To: carissa at oclt.org; hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org
Subject: RE: [Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions

Hi All-

My town of New Paltz has had several cluster subdivisions in which the town
has accepted a conservation easement on the land to remain open space.  
These easements confer no tax benefits to the owners of the property unless
the tax assessor sees fit to reduce their assessment because the land can
not be further subdivided.  I have suggested to some of the people in town
government that they should set up a contractual arrangement with the
Wallkill Valley Land Trust to prepare the baseline documents and do the
monitoring for them.  As part of the subdivision process, the town can have
the developer pay a fee to cover the costs of the baseline and contribute to
stewardship endowment fund.  So far, we haven't heard from the Town, but it
would seem like a win-win situation, enabling the land trust to strengthen
its staffing and the town wouldn't have to stretch its employees even more.

I am wondering if there is any qualitative distinction between conservation
easements held by land trusts and municipalities-- can a municipality more
easily annul or change an easement it holds?  If they fail to adequately
protect their easements, do they become invalid?

All for now.

Lynn Bowdery




>From: "Carissa Haberland" <carissa at oclt.org>
>To: <hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org>
>Subject: [Hvcatskillcewg] Subdivisions
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:41:03 -0400
>
>Hello Everyone-
>
>Here is a topic for a little coffee talk...
>
>Many of the Town Planning Boards are encouraging "conservation 
>subdivisions". To be over simplified, they grant a smaller lot sizes to 
>the developers (higher concentration of homes) if they leave a greater 
>percentage of the parcel undeveloped. In many cases the "open space" of 
>the subdivision is left as a separate parcel in the end of the process. 
>The Land Trust is frequently approached to accept a conservation 
>easement on the "open space", which usually ends up in the ownership of 
>an HOA, or accept the donation of the parcel fee simple. (As a 
>completely unverified and speculative observation, I have  noticed 
>several of these up for tax sale.)
>
>Anyway, the Land Trust has made it quite clear that we are not 
>interested in taking on responsibility of what is frequently the scraps 
>of development.
>We
>have expressed to Towns and the County that our involvement in any 
>development projects should be up front and our goal is to protect the 
>resources completely, not partially. As a result of the amount of these 
>requests, I am asking that our organization establish a separate set of 
>criteria for conservation subdivision projects that we will participate 
>in but I feel we need to do something more to help out the Towns.
>
>I tend to lean toward NOT encouraging Towns to hold easements but with 
>these subdivision situations it does not make sense for us to hold 
>them. I am thinking of encouraging the inclusion of the conserved area 
>into the individual lots rather than keeping it a separate parcel. Is 
>it something you all feel the building departments or other departments 
>of towns would be better able to enforce and maintain if flagged 
>properly?
>
>Talk amongst yourselves...
>
>Carissa
>
>Carissa D. Haberland
>Director of Stewardship Programs
>Orange County Land Trust
>P.O. Box 2442
>Middletown, NY 10940
>(845) 343-0840
>(845) 341-0898 (fax)
>carissa at oclt.org
>www.oclt.org <http://www.oclt.org/>
>
>
>P  Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>
>


>_______________________________________________
>Hvcatskillcewg mailing list
>Hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org
>http://lists.ltanet.org/mailman/listinfo/hvcatskillcewg

_________________________________________________________________
i'm making a difference. Make every IM count for the cause of your choice. 
Join Now. 
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0080000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://im.
live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=hmtagline

_______________________________________________
Hvcatskillcewg mailing list
Hvcatskillcewg at lists.ltanet.org
http://lists.ltanet.org/mailman/listinfo/hvcatskillcewg