Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

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employment status of people living in the bunkhouse or might choose to
grant discretionary approval for part-time employees who live there. Land
trusts must be very cautious when choosing these types of alternatives.
These approaches should be considered only for true technical violations
that have no effect on the easement purposes, no significant effect on the
conservation values of the property and no potential for conferring impermissible
private benefit or private inurement.
4. Any changes to the easement may require supplements to the baseline
documentation. More thoughtful easement drafting could have avoided
this problem!
Scenario 3: Weighing Impacts to Conservation Purposes and Attributes
1. When easements have multiple purposes — as most do — a proposed
amendment can positively affect one purpose and negatively affect others.
Deciding how much is too much is a matter of scale — are the negative
impacts to the purposes significant? Written opinions from experts might
be useful in weighing effects on multiple conservation values. The land
trust’s mission and the community context become important guides for
making the decision. For example, in this situation, the land trust determined
that the proposed use was not consistent with existing agricultural
practices in the community. This scenario is an example where the land
trust was not convinced that the public benefits clearly outweighed the
negative impacts and so chose to leave the status quo in place.
2. Because the amendment would have had negative effects on some of the
conservation purposes, the land trust may have needed attorney general or
court approval to proceed.
3. The land trust is rarely, if ever, obligated to say “yes” to an amendment
request. Following the land trust’s amendment policy and documenting
the reasoning behind decisions will help a land trust defend its choices.
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Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity