Page 6 RAIN June 1982 of land trusts in their efforts to preserve land, but participants at the October conference in Massachusetts expressed concern that recent changes to the national tax policy cast doubts that conservation easements will be treated as charitable deductions in the future. They urged local trusts to develop a diversified program of land acquisiHon. Hand in hand with the acceptance of the conservation easement comes the obligation to monitor the easement. The goal in taking easements (as in the Marin case) is maintaining the productivity of the land as well as maintaining the rural lifestyle. Because the conservation easements are granted in perpetuity, the trust holding them must design its internal structure to accommodate this responsibility. Bargain Sales. In the case of a bargain sale, the owner conveys to the trust the full title at a price below its fair market value. The owner can then claim the difference between the sale price and the fair market value as the charitable contribution. This technique is often used in the pre-acquisition of land for public agencies. Once purchased the trust sells the land at cost plus operating expenses to get it into the public domain. This method has worked well in areas where the government is slow to act an4 land of public significance is liable to be lost in the shuffle. Limited Development. Limited development always involves compromises and some loss of open space. The role of the land trust is to persuade the developer to cluster the development in order to preserve the special characteristics of the land (e.g. an ecosystem, or prime agricultural soil). Benefits of Land Trust Status Association with a land trust, be it a small local group or a regionally-based one, offers homesteaders and communal residents the benefits of shared resources such as technical assistance, news of other land trusts, updates on regulations and laws affecting land use and (most importantly) the support that comes from a shared land ethic. To be part of the land trust movement is to actively address our need to assure the preservation of land and its resources for ourselves and those who will come after us. □□ Anne Maggs is a land trust advisor and treasurer of the Oregon Community Land Trust (c/o Dept, of landscape Architecture, 409 Agriculture Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331), a regionally based land trust which seeks to network land trusts in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia. ACCESS The Community Land Tivst Handbook, edited by Charles Geisler and Charles Matthei, 1982, from: Rodale Press Organic Park Emmaus, PA18049 This hasn't been published yet, but it promises to be a knockout. In the meantime, contact the authors for more information at the Institute for Community Economics, 151 Montague City Road, Greenfield, MA 01301, 413/774-5933. “How To Form YourOwnLand Thist,” single copies free from: The Trust for Public Land 82 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94105 415/495-4014 Emphasizing preservation of agricultural and public use lands, this folder has loads of technical information. The Land Trust Exchange 3 Joy Street Boston, MA 02108 Publications available include the Proceedings of the October '81 land trust conference mentioned above ($14.00 ppd.), a National Directory listing 400 land-saving organizations ($14.00 ppd.), and Exchange, a new bi-monthly periodical ($20/yr.). Rekindling Trust The Adventures of New Society Gardens, Inc. by Lee Lancaster Nobody owns the house I live in. Or rather we own it as a community. I live in a community land trust house. Our land trust was formed eight years ago as a way to radically change our relahonships to property and to be part of the movement to create a more nearly just, ecologically sound and sustainable society. We grew to own two large houses in the city and a spin-off group purchased a 64 acre farm nearby. Now we are at a loss for where to go from here. It seems that the dreams we had are impossible. Our most cherished ideal was to replace the nohon of private ownership of land with holding land in "trust"
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