Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN MCCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW CASTLE LENGTH: Long
In 1960, Lanier and Thecla Frantz purchased a piece of Craig County, a small patch of the valley that lies between North Mountain and Sinking Creek Mountain.
Later on, they bought an adjacent piece, and then another, and another. Over the years, the Frantzes pieced together a 1,200-acre farm in a sort of ``reverse subdividing,'' as they describe it.
Realtors soon came knocking, and would-be homebuilders, hoping to buy a parcel of the beautiful farm off Virginia 311 and conveniently, perhaps too conveniently, close to Roanoke.
``We have resisted that,'' Lanier Frantz says. ``We wanted the property to stay intact. My family and I would like to see it stay that way.''
Two years ago, the Frantzes took what many property owners would consider a drastic step. They put a conservation easement on their farm.
By their own choice, forever and for always, the land cannot be subdivided to less than 100-acre lots. Frantz said he was reluctant to allow even that, but he realized his children and grandchildren may not always be able, or may not want, to own and operate the entire farm.
The Frantzes still own the land, but under the easement, it's worth 24 percent to 40 percent less than before. Doesn't matter.
It also means the Frantzes get a couple of tax breaks. Doesn't matter.
``The desire to maintain open space is the overriding reason,'' Lanier Frantz says. ``And it should be. This is not a decision you make lightly.''
In Virginia, private landowners have put at least 103,000 acres of land under some form of protective easement, according to the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Over the past several years, Virginia has enacted numerous laws that encourage easements as a way to preserve wildlife habitat, open spaces, farmland, historic places and other natural resources around the state.
Flat land makes good farms, so farmers often find their land smack in the path of urban sprawl. Most don't want the sprawl, but they want the option to subdivide and sell when the time comes. That's partly why more farmland is developed than is placed under an easement. Another reason, say those promoting easements, is that many landowners simply don't understand how they work.
Landowners enter into a legal agreement with a government entity or a nonprofit organization to restrict development on their property. The land must meet certain criteria - significant views, historic farms, endangered species and so on - depending on which entity will hold the easement.
In return, landowners have the satisfaction of knowing their property is forever protected from unwanted development, because easements are made ``in perpetuity.'' Landowners also are eligible for income and estate tax benefits, and often local property tax breaks.
There are few enough landowners doing this that it's not breaking any local government budgets. By the same token, says Larry Land with the Virginia Association of Counties, communities may be saving money in the long run that might have gone toward providing services to a potential development, not to mention the aesthetic, ecological and ``quality of life'' values associated with open land.
Each easement is unique, tailored specifically to the landowner's and easement holder's wishes. They don't have to allow public access, for instance, and they don't have to ban all subdivision.
The Frantzes' easement, granted to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, allows them to continue small-scale logging, grow grain, put up some barns and fences, grant access to a private hunt club, and operate a glider airstrip for Blue Ridge Soaring Society.
Others can be quite strict. A couple of years ago, Roanokers David Hunt and his wife, Ellen Aiken, were vacationing in Montana and fell in love with 320 acres of rangeland at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group, owned it and had already put a conservation easement on the land. The couple bought it anyhow, knowing they cannot ever subdivide, plant non-native species, raise animals that interfere with the ecology, raise livestock for profit, erect fences that obstruct wildlife migration (grizzly bears come through from time to time), or use agricultural chemicals.
They can, however, build one house, but it can't be too big or tall, and must be painted to blend with the landscape.
``We felt that the restrictions were consistent with what we would want to do with a piece of land anyway,'' Aiken says. They got the land at less than market value, and she believes the easement eventually will increase the property's value.
The couple also owns land on Bent Mountain near Bottom Creek Gorge, a preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy, and may put an easement on that land.
Easements are not a new concept in Virginia. Some date from the 1930s, when the state was acquiring land to donate to the federal government for the Blue Ridge Parkway. In some cases, says National Park Service land specialist Jim Foxx, landowners donated scenic easements and continued to own and farm their land.
The government owns outright about 80,000 acres along the parkway. Another 1,055 acres, in 155 parcels adjacent to the parkway, remain in private ownership under scenic easements in perpetuity. Most of those are in North Carolina. There are 2.7 acres in Roanoke County and 170 acres in Floyd County in scenic easements.
Landowners cannot put up new buildings, remove existing buildings or trees, or do some other things without permission from the Park Service, Foxx said.
Easements can make landowners masters of their own destiny, says Michael Smeltzer, a real estate attorney with Woods, Rogers and Hazlegrove. But they're not for everyone.
``You've got to be able to afford to do it, because you're devaluing probably your largest asset,'' he says. ``When you're talking in perpetuity, people get really antsy about doing this.''
But that's the only way to get tax benefits, and devaluing the property may be just the solution for landowners who want to preserve the open space or family farm, but can't pay the increasing taxes that come from encroaching homes, shops and roads.
``What's going to happen to these folks is they're millionaires and don't know it,'' Smeltzer says. ``You all struggle and subsist as farmers, want to keep the property in the family. Once you die, that property will be valued by an appraiser. You have to sell it to pay the taxes.''
For more information on conservation easements, call the Virginia Outdoors Foundation at (804) 293-3423.
by CNB