Since the founding of PLC in 2006, we have placed more than 2,300 acres of environmentally sensitive land into public ownership for recreation and habitat protection through Florida Communities Trust grants.  Also, PLC has helped many local private landowners protect the conservation values of their properties while saving them thousands of dollars annually in taxes either through conservation easements or estate donations.  Over the coming decades, we plan to expand these efforts to protect the environmentally valuable lands in Putnam County.

 

Preservation of the exceptional qualities of Putnam County – its rural environment, its wildlife corridors, its natural resources, especially the St. Johns River – requires commitment.  PLC’s goal is to protect our County’s natural heritage for future generations.

 

To accomplish this goal, PLC needs to become a primary ally, enabling the community to conserve more land.  PLC can help landowners learn how to become better stewards of their land and to protect and preserve their land while saving taxes through conservation easements.

 

With the recent downturn in the economy and much tighter governmental budgets, direct public acquisition is currently not a viable strategy to protect habitat.  Instead, PLC wants to continue habitat protection locally by helping as many people as possible protect their own land while also receiving tax breaks through the creation of conservation easements.  PLC will continue to publicize the benefits of this strategy while acting as an agent for landowners, guiding them through the conservation easement process and acting as assistant stewards of these private conservation lands.

 

As part of this outreach effort, PLC sponsors public events, both as fund raisers and as information outreach about our goals, objectives, and strategies.  These events are a challenge.  We need more public support and involvement to help these events reach more people and inform landowners of the opportunities and benefits involved in personal land conservation and enhanced stewardship.  We welcome volunteers.

 

The hopes of PLC are simple:

• To help protect as much environmentally valuable habitat as possible through a variety of mechanisms.
• To make more landowners aware of the benefits of protecting their lands forever.
• To help guarantee the viability of the habitat corridors that criss-cross our county.
• To involve more interested members of the community in PLC as members, donors, easement owners, volunteers, and promoters of our goals.
• To help guarantee the sustainability of our environment.  We ask for your help.

Land donation and sale--Landowners can donate or sell their land outright to PLC for conservation purposes, leaving a priceless legacy for future generations.Donating land can provide substantial income tax deductions and estate tax benefits, while enabling landowners to avoid the capital gains taxes that would result from selling the property. The land remains forever preserved for future generations.

Conservation easements-- A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and PLC that permanently limits use of the land to protect its conservation values. Easements can be donated or sold to land trusts. In all cases, however, the agreement is carefully crafted to serve the interests of the landowner, allowing the land to be owned, lived on, used, sold, bequeathed to heirs, even selectively developed, while simultaneously ensuring that it will be kept intact and its conservation values preserved in perpetuity. For example, a landowner might want to sell his land for limited development--say two homes on sixteen acres of a 100-acre parcel--to a local developer. This use could be written into the easement contract, allowing the landowner to profit while also ensuring the ongoing protection of 84 acres of conservation land. Significant tax benefits can accrue to property owners who donate easements to land trusts, and these incentives have recently been extended to benefit not just individuals with large property holdings, but those with more modest holdings as well. Please read about the new tax incentives by following the links below.

Changing the rules affecting conservation easements (Gainesville Sun, August 2006)

Conservation tax incentives (p. 2, Cooperative Conservation News, Feburary 2007)

Tax incentive for conservation easement donations (Land Trust Alliance online)

 

Amendment 4

What landowners can do

Current Projects