"Land trust surpasses 1,000-acre mark" is the headline to this story today in the Muncie Star-Press. Some quotes:
MUNCIE - The amount of land protected by Red-tail Conservancy in East Central Indiana recently surpassed the 1,000-acre mark. The land trust, formed in 1999, recently acquired:Meanwhile, the Gary Post Tribune today had this story, headlined "Land trust’s back taxes on hold." Some quotes:- A conservation easement on 30 acres of wooded ravines and a waterfall on a stream called Cream Run several miles south of Richmond. * * *
- Ownership of 19 acres of woodlands and wetlands along Big Blue River near Henry County Road 100-S. * * *
- A conservation easement on 19 acres of farm land to be restored as wetlands along Interstate 69 near Ind. 236 in Madison County. * * *
A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust to permanently protect property from development, even when it changes ownership.
[Earlham College biology professor William Buskirk] noted. "It's still private land."
Posted by Marcia Oddi at December 23, 2004 11:39 AM
CROWN POINT — Tempers flared Wednesday as the Lake County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals voted not to take action against an environmental land trust.The board voted for the second meeting in a row to table a vote on levying four years of back taxes for 215 undeveloped parcels the Shirley Heinze Land Trust owns around the county.
The board’s inaction prompted Betty Wilusz, co-director of the Assessor Office’s not-for-profit department, to tell the members she was disappointed in them for not following the law.
“The request (for tax-exempt status) should have been denied,” Wilusz said.
By failing to present a plan for developing the scattered parcels, the land trust ran afoul of state laws governing tax-exempt status for not-for-profit groups prior to 2004, according to Wilusz and the office’s not-for-profit department co-director Sharon Fleming.
The law was changed beginning with 2004 taxes to acknowledge some parcels are purchased expressly not to be developed, according to Warren Buckler, president of the board of directors of the Shirley Heinz Land Trust. But that change does not protect the group in earlier years, Wilusz said.