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> FAQ #4 > Rural Legacy | Huntersville
Rural Legacy Area | St. Mary's River Rural
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Maryland Rural Legacy
Program
The Rural Legacy Program was created by the
1997 Maryland General Assembly as a major element of the Governor's Smart
Growth and Neighborhood Conservation initiative. Its mission is to dramatically
increase the rate of land conservation to protect areas rich in farms,
forests, and natural and cultural resources in partnership with local
governments, land trusts, and citizens.
The goals of Rural Legacy are to:
- establish greenbelts of forests and farms
around rural communities to preserve their cultural heritage and sense
of place;
- preserve critical habitat for native plant and
wildlife species;
- support natural resource-based economies like
farming, forestry, tourism, and outdoor recreation; and,
- protect riparian forests, wetlands, and greenways to buffer the
Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries from pollution run-off.
The Program seeks to create partnerships
among federal, state, and local governments, and land trusts to conserve
large contiguous tracts of land and other strategic landscapes from sprawl
development and complement and bolster existing programs to acquire
conservation easements and public lands. Local governments or qualified land
trusts may sponsor applications for grant funds to be used for purchasing
preservation easements from landowners in a specified area. Landowner
participation is completely voluntary. Participants retain the continued
private use of the land for farming, forestry, etc. The Program cannot require the right of
public access.
With the approval of the Board of Public
Works, the Rural Legacy Program Board in the Department of Natural Resources
annually selects Rural Legacy Areas from submitted applications. Criteria for approval include the
extent to which the area is threatened and degree to which the proposed
protection plan will succeed in protecting resources. Program applications can only be made
by a county government or a land trust with the approval of the affected
local government. Upon grant
approval, sponsors negotiate contracts to purchase land or conservation
easements and submit these contracts to the Rural Legacy Board and the Board
of Public Works. Upon contract
approval, the sponsors acquire the interest in the property and act as
stewards for its permanent protection.
An application designating Huntersville in
the Fifth Election District of St. Mary's County as a Rural Legacy Area was
submitted by the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust and
approved by the State of Maryland. The Patuxent
Tidewater Land Trust with St. Mary's County Government chose the Huntersville-Patuxent River area for its Rural Legacy application site because of the area's
exceptional agricultural, natural, and historic resources, and the interest
expressed by landowners in participating in the Program. Now that a substantial share of the
Huntersville Rural Legacy Area has been permanently preserved, the Land Trust
has developed and submitted a proposal to designate the St. Mary’s
River watershed to be a Rural Legacy Area. To date, this proposal has not been
funded by the State. Rural Legacy
areas have also been designated and funded in Anne Arundel County, Calvert County, Charles County, and Prince
George's County.
How Is Land Preserved and What Are the
Benefits?
Owners of qualifying land in the area can
preserve their land by selling or donating a conservation easement. If the
Rural Legacy Program purchases an easement, the landowner is paid for the
value of his or her property's development potential in return for the
agreement (called a Deed of Conservation Easement) not to develop the
property except for specific rights that the landowner retains. Donated easements achieve the same
result as purchased easements, except landowners do not receive direct
monetary compensation. Donated
easements may result in substantial income, estate, and property tax
reductions. These reductions can
come in the form of property tax credits, income tax deductions and/or
credits for the charitable gift of the value of the easement, and/or lower
estate and inheritance taxes due to the property's reduced development
potential. In addition to the
financial benefits individuals can gain by placing an easement on their
properties, the entire community can gain from the enhanced natural resource
protection, the quality of life that undeveloped land can produce, and the
reduced taxes that result from more concentrated development elsewhere where
infrastructure already exists.
Who Is Eligible to Apply to the Rural
Legacy Program?
To be eligible for participation in the
Rural Legacy program, the landowner's property must be located in a Rural
Legacy area approved by the State of Maryland. To
find out if a property lies with a Rural Legacy area, ask your local county
government. (Contacts in Southern
Maryland are listed below.)
Under current rules, parcels twenty-five
(25) acres or greater are considered for participation in the Rural Legacy
program. The rules are being
reevaluated to increase the size of parcels for consideration to fifty (50)
acres. Unlike the State's
farmland protection program, Rural Legacy does not have specific minimum
requirements for soil qualities nor is it restricted to farm and forested
land. The Program's intent is to
seek land or blocs of land with multiple conservation values usually not
addressed by other programs and to build in greater flexibility in evaluating
such properties and the development of appropriate easements. The presence of extraordinary
agricultural, environmental, or historic features on a property can enable
land of smaller acreage to be considered as well.
What Restrictions Are Associated with a
Rural Legacy Easement?
Rural Legacy easements can be tailored to
the specific circumstances of each property, within limits set by the Rural
Legacy staff and the boards of the easement holding organizations. Easements permit the continued use of
the land for agricultural production and a principal residence. A certain number of additional
residential lots may also be reserved for future development, depending on
the property's characteristics. Except for uses directly related to the
processing and storage of agricultural and woodland products, commercial and
industrial uses are prohibited on land with a Rural Legacy easement. Outdoor advertising and the dumping of
rubbish and other materials are also prohibited. Rural Legacy easements do not
grant the public access to or use of the property. Finally, a Total Resource Conservation
Plan approved by the County Soil Conservation District, including appropriate
stream bank protection and nutrient management, will be required prior to
settlement of the easement.
How Long Do Easements Apply and Who
Holds and Monitors Easements?
A Rural Legacy easement is in perpetuity. Purchased and donated easements will be
co-held by the sponsor (the Patuxent Tidewater Land
Trust in St. Mary's County) and either the Maryland Rural Legacy Program or
the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. All easements are monitored by the
easement holders for compliance with the deed restrictions.
What Is the Application Process?
Different Rural Legacy sponsors have
different application procedures. For the Huntersville project, sponsors
will accept signed statements of interest until a few days before the
deadline for the Rural Legacy application to be submitted to the State usually
in late January; a signed statement of interest should be turned in no later
than the previous December 31.
Based on the interest expressed in the
program, the sponsor will apply for funding from the State after prioritizing
the properties. When funding
becomes available (and the State may request that property priorities be
reordered), some or all landowners may be asked to reconfirm their interest
in participation. An easement
contract will be negotiated between the landowner and the sponsor, subject to
state approval. Once the easement
contract is completed, the value of that easement will be established as a
percentage of the appraised fair market value. The offer made for the easements is
based on two appraisals. If the
owner is unhappy with the offer, the offer can always be turned down or the
landowner can pay for a third appraisal from a list of appraisers meeting
state requirements. Funds
available for easement acquisition will be applied to properties in their
priority ranking order until all funds have been committed, though the
sponsor may seek to maximize the use of available funds by considering the
properties first whose owners are most willing to negotiate bargain sales.
Contact Information:
- Anne Arundel County:
- Anne Arundel County Government (sponsor)
- Calvert County:
- Calvert County Board of County Commissioners (sponsor)
- Charles County:
- Charles County Government (sponsor)
- Prince George's County:
- Prince George's County Government (sponsor)
- Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (co-sponsor)
- St. Mary's County:
- Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust (sponsor)
- St. Mary's County Government (co-sponsor)
- Maryland Rural Legacy Program
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Tawes State Office Building E-4
580
Taylor Avenue
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
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