TThe Southern Conservation Trust (SCT) is looking to make it easier for landowners to enter into land easements through its new Flint Rising Conservation Assistance Fund.
The Flint Rising Conservation Assistance Fund is funded from a $300,000 donation from Georgia Power and is looking to assist landowners in Fayette and Coweta counties with the bureaucratic costs of entering their land into conservation easements — a type of legal agreement that permanently restricts development of that land and limits the activities that can be done on it with the goal of preserving the land forever.
In conservation easements, the property owner retains ownership of the land and is able to keep the property, sell it or pass it down like any other property; however, the conservation restrictions still apply to whoever holds the property’s deed next — effectively ensuring the property will be conserved and limiting activities that can be done with the property regardless of who owns it. Landowners, in turn, may receive tax breaks.
The SCT is a land trust charity that was founded in 1993 in Georgia, focused originally on local watersheds and creeks, and is headquartered in Fayetteville; nonetheless, today it has projects in 13 states across the Southeast, totaling more than 65,000 acres.
Those projects are largely protected through conservation easements — the same agreements that it is now hoping to assist local landowners around the Flint River in entering via its Flint Rising Conservation Assistance Fund, which is part of a larger Flint Rising Initiative by the organization.
The Flint River is one of a handful of rivers in the U.S. that isn’t dammed for a large portion of its length — over 220 miles, starting from its source in Clayton County near Hartsfield Jackson International Airport and flowing south before eventually meeting a dam in Southern Georgia. The river outlets in Southwest Georgia and serves as a water source for over a million people in Georgia, for drinking water and agriculture.
A financial burden lifted
As of July 1, the application portal for the Flint Rising Conservation Assistance Fund has been open.
Chris Doane, president and CEO of the SCT, said the cost is a real hurdle for landowners wanting to conserve their properties — a hurdle that, through this fund, SCT will be able to help landowners climb over.
“It’s an appraisal, then a legal process, then actually making a donation to a land trust like the Southern Conservation Trust to go into an endowment so that we [SCT] can monitor that property in perpetuity to make sure that the property is staying compliant with the deed restrictions that have been placed upon that property upon conserving it,” Doane said.
The cost of entering property in an easement can cost thousands of dollars. Doane noted that a rough estimate will see anywhere from $5000 to $10,000 in assistance up-front per project, depending on conservation value, acreage, and a number of unique factors.
The SCT is aiming to aid 25 to 30 conserved properties in Fayette and Coweta counties of various sizes through this fund.
The process for entering into a conservation easement with a conservation organization like SCT or a local government agency varies, but generally starts with getting an assessment of the property, including a survey and appraisal of the property, before making a formal donation to a land trust to go into an endowment.
Conservation corridors
Fayette and Coweta have both seen an increasing presence of development from proximity to sprawling Atlanta. The focus on the two aforementioned counties comes from the organization being headquartered in Fayetteville, which is in Fayette County, and its proximity to neighboring Coweta County, along with active work Georgia Power is doing in them. The SCT told Saporta Report that despite the donation from Georgia Power, no restrictions were placed on which properties the organization can help preserve.
With a focus on Fayette and Coweta, Doane is hopeful the SCT can help conserve properties adjacent to each other to maximize impact.
“We know that there is greater conservation value, from a conservation point of view, of conserved properties that are next to each other,” Doane said, adding that stringing a few together can make conservation corridors. “In North Georgia, I think that is still possible. In South Georgia, I think that is still possible. In Metro Atlanta, everything is very fragmented, very chopped up… a lot of properties are getting sliced up into smaller parcels. And actually being able to have corridors where you have three or four of five private property owners, or larger tracts like that conserved, is getting a lot more challenging at this point.”
He added that whether it is five acres or 400, if it meets the criteria, the SCT is willing to take a look.
For Doane and other conservationists, time is of the essence. For many counties in the Metro Atlanta region, especially ones closer to the heart of Atlanta, there are few fragments of land that are left to try and conserve in this manner. And that same development engine is making its way outside the city more and more.
“It’s almost as if we’re in a mad race of actually trying to protect things as quickly as things are being developed, and getting out the awareness and encouraging folks to actually choose this option instead of selling to someone who wants to rezone it and develop it for commercial reasons or something,” Doane said.
One of the hottest topics around development has been, of course, data centers. Georgia has become one of the hottest states for new data center construction, a fact that has received mixed reception from residents concerned about pollution, energy and water strain and resale values on homes in close proximity to data centers.
However, Doane also noted that development is natural, and being pro-conservation doesn’t necessarily mean anti-development.
“It is a challenge of balancing it out, because we’re promoting it as being a great place to move, but then we are also promoting covering things up with concrete and taking some of those things [that make the area great] away,” Doane said. “So there’s a balance between maintaining a certain amount of character that everybody loves and everybody appreciates when they move here or want to move their business here, but then there’s the environmental part of it, because it is a vital waterway to sustain both industry as well as our communities.”
Developing projects right up to the buffers and edges of the waterways, Doane added, can take away natural filtering systems that the river has that cleans the water.
The SCT estimates that selected projects will require anywhere from a six to 12 month process to complete. Final decisions on selected properties will be made after internal review and approval from the SCT.
The SCT will be hosting an invite-only Flint Rising Forum on Nov. 2, gathering stakeholders and local leaders from around the Metro Atlanta area to learn more of the work that SCT does, conservation work in general and how they can support it.
