Conservation Easements
(Development Rights)

Development rights are a landowner's rights to develop or subdivide one's property. Similar to mineral rights, development rights can be separated from the land itself.

Purchasing development rights is a voluntary farmland protection technique that compensates landowners for limiting future development on their land.

DCFF is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization whose goal is to purchase or receive through donations the development rights to a piece of property. The land itself remains in private ownership and the landowner still retains all other rights and responsibilities associated with being a landowner. DCFF will essentially buy the landowner's right to develop the land for anything other than farming.

When a landowner sells his or her development rights, a legal agreement known as a conservation easement is created to restrict (in perpetuity) the use of land to farming and open space. A conservation easement permanently prevents residential, commercial, or industrial development of a property and the land retains its agricultural or conservation value.

The value of an easement varies with each property. A certified professional appraiser determines the value of the land with its potential development value and the value of the land as agricultural land. The difference between these two values may be the value of the development rights or easement.

The purchase of conservation easements can be very expensive. We need the support of everyone who does not want this county to be paved over.