ECC December Meeting Minutes
Guest Speaker – Jac Conaway, Rondout Esopus Land Conservancy (RELC)
Jac Conaway is Vice President of the Rochester-Esopus Land Conservancy. RECL is chartered to help interested landowners establish conservation easements on their land and monitor the status of those easements.
A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement whereby private landowners agree to limit uses of their land, most often development potential. The agreements are permanent, yet highly flexible, and designed to meet the needs of the landowner and easement holder. In New York, perpetual easements may be held by the state, municipalities, and qualified nonprofits, such as land trusts. Lands with conservation easements remain in private ownership and on the tax rolls.The easement goes with the deed in perpetuity. Easements can include defined areas for built structures. The rest of the land is under a list of agreed-on prohibitions.
RELC is required by NYS to have an endowment sufficient to cover legal costs to defend the easement. Only a court can overturn an easement. The Conservancy guarantees that the terms of the easement will be defended. Fees for lawyers, for a survey of the parcel, and for the endowment are involved in having the Conservancy agree to take on an easement.There are grants available to assist landowners with the cost of establishing the easement, including contributions to the endowment. Landowners can apply for an annual NYS grant to offset taxes on parcels under easement. The funding is allocated by county. The state legislature extends these funds and renews them annually, but there are more applications than funding, and this money is typically expended by August of each year. The Conservancy can get money from NY State if there are endangered species on the property. Legal precedent in NYS has favored land trusts in defending challenges to conservation easements. The Conservancy has not had to defend a legal challenge in court, thus far.
RELC recently accepted 6 or 7 new easements from the Open Space Institute; Davis Farm is among them, and the Ashokan field campus. Once a parcel is accepted, RELC members monitor it to ensure the terms of the easement are not violated.
All the Ulster County land conservancies are listed on a website, with a page designated for each one. Information on the terms of an easement is on the RELC website. Their primary interests/concerns are with road frontage and water resources of a parcel.There is an opportunity for the ECC to help direct people interested in a conservation easement on their property to the RELC for assistance.
The RELC has had large events, such as the one they held last year at Arrowwood Farms. They’re mailing out 15,000 newsletters for public outreach. People can join for $5.00. They’ll have an event in the spring. See the RELC website for more information.
Old Business
Possible Speaker Series Speakers:
UCRRA – where does our recycling go? Journey of a crushed beer can
Pollinators – Francis Groeder
Native Plants – Francis Groeder
New Business
Website: Madeline Russo reported on her research into the possibility of a newToR ECC website, similar to Wawarsing’s ECC site. Members made a proposal to Supervisor Baden. Supervisor Baden recommended using the existing TOR website for now, because it is free of charge, even though it has reduced functionality and limited design capability. Rich Miller is the town webmaster.
A member is needed to evaluate the current website, suggest necessary updates and begin drafting content for recycling and stream/wetland conservation so we can begin to prepare for spring events.
EMC: Judith Karpova resigned as representative. A new ECC representative is needed, since the EMC is an important source of information on issues that impact the town and the entire county. The ToR representative does not have to be a member of the ECC.
New Members: Discussed need for new members and ideas for how to encourage applicants. The Bluestone can run a regular advertisement for us. Kristin will look into this in January.
Adjourn