Virginia Conservation Easements

This article chronicles the success of Virginia's conservation easements in preserving undeveloped land. Virginia has apparenently been generous with its tax breaks; in response, landowners have been much more eager to grant the easements than they are in other states. The tax deduction is based upon the value of the easement (which must be pretty substantial with a piece of developable land); more importantly, the easement is transferrable-- that is, you can sell it to someone richer than you who needs more of a break on taxes. It is unusual to see the Commonwealth on the forefront of what is percevied to be an environmentalist land use issue. The Post was also kind enough to give a good explanation of an easement here.

Although there are some critics of the program, it seems to me that anything the Commonwealth loses in taxes is more than offset by the money it would have to lay out for infrastructure, schools and services for newly developed land. Plus it raises everyone's quality of life. This is good public policy and a credit to our State.