Development Rights & Conservation Agreements
Conservation Agreements
Conservation agreements also called “Woodland Legacy Agreements” can be generated on natural habitats, farmland and forestland. Similar to development rights, a conservation agreement is established when a land owner makes a permanent commitment to relinquish development rights and to maintain a specific land use. Conservation agreements are then often sold to land trusts or conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy. Often the easements are associated with an endowment that will support the maintenance of the land use over time. Conservation agreements can generate tax credits in various ways. Because development rights have been forsaken, the land value has decreased and this can ease the tax burden on the landowner significantly.
Additionally, some states and municipalities have tax incentive programs aimed to encourage the establishment of different types of easements. In those cases tax credits can be generated through the establishment of an easement and those tax credits can be either used over time by the land owner or, in some states, can be sold to companies with a greater need for the tax credits. These are called transferable tax credits and there are several states that have instituted such systems.
Transferable Development Rights - TDR’s
Landowners, farmers, conservation organizations, and land trusts across the country have found that giving up development rights to land is an effective and economical means of maintaining land as forest, farmland, or other types of green spaces. State based programs offer various incentives to keep land under desirable land uses such as working forests, traditional farmland, or natural habitat. Incentive programs include tax reductions (tradable or not), tradable development rights, and state supported conservation easements that guarantees the permanence of conservation.
Transferable development rights (TDRs) are a form of tradable easement whereby a private landowner chooses to protect a biodiversity-rich portion of their land from development through conservation. The private landowner can then sell these development rights to developers and thus generate income. The developers are then permitted to develop in the portion of the land targeted for development above and beyond what the standard zoning rules would normally allow absent the purchase of a TDR.
TDR and Conservation Agreement Services Include:
- Listings for TDRs, conservation based tax credits and conservation agreements
- Increased visibility for listed offerings from Mission Markets Earth conservation focused members
- Ability to more effectively monetize rights and credits through increased price discovery and transparency
- Efficient platform for private landowners, municipalities, and real estate professionals