Land Trust Activity and Highest and Best Uses Under Conservation Easements in Georgia, USA

Land trusts are non-profit organizations that aim to protect land and natural and cultural resources, usually through the acquisition of property rights. The most widely used land protection tool among land trusts is the conservation easement. The donation or sale of a conservation easement may offer financial rewards to the landowner, including potential property tax reductions. In Georgia, as well as numerous other states, there are problems with obtaining accurate and uniform assessments of easement-burdened properties, in part due to a lack of information on and understanding of the impacts of conservation easements on the properties they encumber. We conducted a statewide survey of the use of conservation easements and fee simple land acquisition by land trusts in the state of Georgia. Using these data, we collected a sample of conservation easements and described their remaining "highest and best uses" by considering the combined effects of the prohibited uses and reserved rights. From the land trust survey responses (92% response rate), we found that at least 25 active land trusts exist in Georgia; these land trusts had protected 25,884 hectares by 2002, with 70% of this land area under conservation easement. The remaining highest and best uses of easement-burdened properties in Georgia fall into income-producing and non-income-producing categories. These categories can be used to educate state and local tax officials, and to develop a standardized process for assessing easement-burdened properties.