Conservation Easement As Selling Tool

Land conservation matters to many of my buyers in west Sonoma County and Healdsburg. They are looking for the beautiful scenery we are famous for, and many of them want to be farmers. At the same time, they understand that if we remove all the natural cover, we are destroying habitat that is essential for the survival of a healthy diversity of creatures. On the day before Thanksgiving I was investigating country land with some families looking for fields for row crops. The presence of animals nearby would have been an indicator of healthy soils and water to maintain a wild animal population, and our junior farmer/scientist on the right was investigating the acorns abundantly available underfoot.

We did find a nice parcel ourside Sebastopol and had about an hour hike around the property. One of the features of this 20 acre west Sonoma County farm was a ten acre conservation easement that had been granted to the state as part of an earlier land split. The broker touring with us mentioned that he had mixed results with talking about the conservation portion of the property. Some buyers were upset that they wouldn't have control over every square inch of the land they had purchased. Others saw the value of having a private park (no public access) maintained by the state.

The easement is completely accessible to the owners of the main property; they just can't build on it, clear it, or otherwise change it from being a natural portion of the landscape. For the California Department Fish & Game, it's an important wildlife corridor that allows creatures to move along a major watershed under cover. For the group I was with it meant that some of the land they were looking at couldn't be farmed, but I think their overall feeling was delight that their kids could grow up sharing the land with the local fauna.

The broker had priced the property excluding land value for the ten acres in the conservation easement. There was just an allowance in the price for a park-like amenity neighboring the main acreage. I thought that was a fair way to set a price on something that is of no value to some buyers, but significant to others.

It's clear this junior buyer was on board with the wild land.