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ScribeBy: Lynne Langley of The Post and
Courier Staff
Originally Published on: 4/28/03
Page: A1
State breaks prompt record number of agreements preserving natural areas
Land conservation is flourishing in South Carolina as groups set records for the number of donations and total acreage protected from development.
An income tax credit, an incentive from the state since 2001, has bolstered what already was a growing trend.
The Charleston-based Lowcountry Open Land Trust reported a record year in 2002, with 16 easements encompassing 8,410 acres.
That increased its protected land by 30 percent.
Included among those easements to the 18-year-old trust was its largest donation ever, the 6,376-acre Mackay Point Plantation, located where three rivers converge to form the Broad River in Jasper County.
The Nature Conservancy South Carolina chapter protected a record-breaking 21,747 acres last year, including 15 transactions valued at more than $21 million. The acreage included the second largest conservation easement in the chapter's 25-year history, the 7,400-acre Groton Plantation, which has 24 miles of frontage along the Savannah River. Other acreages expanded two national wildlife refuges and a national estuarine research reserve.
Ducks Unlimited conserved its 100,000th acre in South Carolina last year. DU's Lowcountry Initiative wrote a record nine easements in coastal South Carolina and five in coastal North Carolina, totaling 5,437 acres. In some cases, Ducks Unlimited worked with developers to preserve natural areas within planned residential communities.
The Nature Conservancy purchased critical land outright, in some cases, and is holding it until Congress approves funding to add the pristine property to federal refuges and reserves. These are places used by wildlife, enjoyed by the public and in which scientists conduct research.
The Lowcountry Open Land Trust works with citizens who want to retain title but protect their property forever from development, no matter how the future may change their family fortunes or surrounding sites.
All three groups draft conservation easements, then enforce the easements' terms, which are legally binding in perpetuity, regardless of who buys the land.
"We thought it would be a good idea to donate an easement," said Hanahan resident Jan E. Moore.
Moore and his brother-in-law John Blackwell own the 240-acre Rainey Acres Farm near Jacksonboro.
"We also got a nice tax write-off," Moore said. He described the new state and older federal tax benefits as helpful. "It helped make us decide to do it. That speeded us up," Moore said of the easement granted to Ducks Unlimited.
"We bought Rainey Acres (in 1990) because we always wanted a place in the country. It was a lifelong dream to have a place to take the kids," Moore said. The families hunt and fish there, install wood duck boxes, plant crops for wildlife and raise timber.
Rainey Acres, which includes a pond used by endangered wood storks and waterfowl, lies just a mile from Jacksonboro right on U.S. Highway 17. "You could put houses on it or put up a Wal-Mart," said Moore, who spent last week planting corn for deer and turkey.
The easement ensures the land will remain the way it is, he said. "I'm glad they won't be able to build a shopping center there," he said.
LOVE AND TAXES
Tax breaks are a benefit but not the main reason that donors grant conservation easements, said Will Haynie, the new executive director of the Lowcountry Open Land Trust.
People write easements for three reasons, Haynie said, "They love their land. They love their land. They love their land."
Edwin Cooper, director of the Ducks Unlimited Lowcountry Initiative, agrees but described the new state tax law as a powerful incentive.
Some people who planned to donate easements waited for the state tax write-off, Cooper said. DU closed on 18 easements in the first 18 months after the incentive went into effect compared with two closures the year before.
"Now when people call, they are very aware of the S.C. Conservation Incentive Act. It's definitely in the lexicon of conservation easements," said Cooper, adding that he received a record number of easement inquiries in the past year.
The state's tax break also applies to corporations, and last year 80 to 90 percent of the coastal DU easements were donated by partnerships and corporations rather than by individuals, he said.
The company that owns Kensington Plantation in Georgetown County, for instance, limited development to 14 home sites and placed 347 acres, including former rice fields now managed for waterfowl and other wildlife, under an easement that prevents development.
"I've been hearing a lot of talk that this really helped the land conservation business," said Chip Campsen, a former Republican state representative from Charleston who was the author and sponsor of the state Conservation Incentive Act. He now serves as senior policy adviser to Gov. Mark Sanford.
"I think we'll have a lot more easements with this act than without it. It got a lot of people off the fence," Campsen said. "You can't do this kind of conservation through legislation or zoning ordinances. You need to build incentives for conservation if you are going to conserve big chunks of habitat."
"The act was an incentive for donors of the land we got," said Ann Jennings, executive director of the 11-county Congaree Land Trust and president of the S.C. Land Trust Network.
"It was a huge year for us," she said. The act went into effect July 1, 2001 and the 12-year-old Congaree Land Trust has since tripled its easement acreage.
Although the act has limits, she said, "You can wipe out your entire tax indebtedness. You can give the credit to your child, or you can sell it to someone who has a high tax."
HOW THE TAX BREAKS WORK
As Jennings and Campsen explain the state incentive, donors may take 25 percent of the value of their easement as an income tax credit, as if they had already paid that much in taxes.
A cap of $250 an acre is designed to encourage protection of undeveloped land somewhat removed from cities and towns, not small residential lots that would sell for far higher amounts. If a credit is greater than taxes owed, landowners may spread out the credit over an indefinite number of years.
They also may sell the credit. People shopping to buy tax credits have begun calling land trusts, Jennings said.
Colorado reported that credits are going for 80 cents on the dollar, Jennings said.
In 2000, Colorado passed a complex conservation act, but virtually no one used it. The state borrowed South Carolina's newly adopted act and changed its law to something similar in 2001, she said. "They were avalanched with conservation easements and people asking for the state credit."
The older federal tax deduction allows donors to declare up to 30 percent of their adjusted gross income as a charitable easement donation on their federal tax form and spread the value of the easement as deductions over six years.
Appraisers help establish value for state and federal taxes. First, they appraise land based on such things as location, zoning, likelihood of development, and ability to subdivide and create improvements. Then, they appraise the land based on use as restricted by the easement.
In addition, easement restrictions may reduce property tax values and thus annual real estate taxes, which may help owners hold onto family property at a time Lowcountry development and rising taxes may force people to sell.
Conservation easements also provide a public benefit, Haynie said. "They preserve the landscape of the Lowcountry. Everybody sees the Lowcountry landscape."
The federal tax code lists certain conservation values that an easement must provide if it is to qualify for tax purposes. They include preserving open space visible from a public road, water or byway, said Haynie.
Where people have driven by farmland or boated past woodlands and marsh, people forever will see those scenic vistas, he said.
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