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Promoting a Way to Preserve Bits of Land
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For Christopher Vale and his wife, Sharon, the decision to donate their four-acre property next to Rockburn Branch Park off Landing Road was swayed by memories of their four boys playing in the woods and winding streams.
"This is where you grew up," Vale, 67, said he told his sons recently. "We want to keep it that way. They said it's all right."
"It's not about the money," added his wife. "It's about the land."
But emotional ties can't alleviate significant initial costs landowners bear as they undergo the donation process. There are land appraisals and attorney fees that can amount to several thousand dollars.
"We have heard that has been a roadblock for people," Schumacher said. In response, the two land trusts are asking the county executive to include $125,000 in his coming budget to help the trusts promote, acquire and monitor easements.
"We are very interested in the proposal," said Joshua Feldmark, executive director of the county's Commission on the Environment and Sustainability. "We're looking for ways to address the issue of sporadic in-fill. This seems to us to be an interesting and worthwhile way to look at this issue."
Yuka Manabe, along with her husband, Jim Campbell, and four children, moved into their house off Landing Road last year. They love the fact that their old farmhouse and three acres are surrounded by Rockburn Branch Park, but with their busy, demanding lives as medical researchers, they don't know whether they can put down permanent roots. Even so, they are considering a conservation easement.
"The amount of green space left on this side of the county is small," said Manabe, 41. "A lot of it is in my back yard."
With an easement, "maybe what I can give this community is a little less traffic on the road," she said. "Trees that are older than any of us. A place that has not been built up."
The Howard County Conservancy and Rockburn Land Trust will review conservation easements with landowners from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center, 10520 Old Frederick Rd., Woodstock. 410-465-8877.
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