Land Trust

From: William G. ShimekDarlingtonDavid Hooper's letter, "Bucolic reality check," Dec. 8, concerning the preservation work of the Harford Land Trust complains of "terminal do-gooderism" and suggests that people "buy a farm, go to work, and get an overdose of reality."For anyone attempting to do so, a harsher reality would strike first: Nobody intending to make agriculture a sole source of income can afford to buy land in this county. Prices have been bid so high that developers are almost the only buyersof farmland.

Representatives of land trusts and conservation groups are expected to gather May 15 in Columbia for a statewide conference on the challenges of saving land in Maryland. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is scheduled to keynote the all-day event, which is hosted by the Maryland Environmental Trust . The conference, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., is open to the public, though it'll cost $60 per person to cover all meals and admission to the sessions, including the trust's award ceremony and celebration.

In response to a Sun item on May 13, "Home again after year in Iraq: Cassilly focused on family, not politics," one fact that wasn't noted was that Robert Cassilly, as a Harford County Council member, received his salary while he was serving in Iraq from March 2006 to the end of his term. In January 2007, Cassilly and his wife, Deborah, confidentially donated $6,000 of that salary to the Harford Land Trust and the rest to other charitable organizations in Harford County. The trust is thrilled to benefit from the unsolicited and wonderfully generous gift.

Along Lyons Creek in southern Anne Arundel County are woods that offer perfect places for migratory songbirds to hide their young, native trees that provide a fruit buffet for critters, and marshes where ducks scour for snacks. One tract in the area recently took on added significance. When Pat Melville placed her land into a program to ensure that no development can occur on it, she created a milestone for a local nonprofit organization. Her 53 acres became the 50th property placed into a conservation agreement with the Scenic Rivers Land Trust, which is holding the easement jointly with the Maryland Environmental Trust.

The Severn River Land Trust has taken over a conservation easement on 19.6 acres along the Severn River near Arnold.The area, which includes steep wooded slopes near Pine Lane, had been in an easement held by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation since 1980. The foundation turned it over to the local land trust because foundation officials felt the trust could better monitor the site.The easement, originally conveyed to the foundation by Pine Lane Associates, limits development to seven houses. Keeping the waterfront wooded prevents the soil from eroding into the Severn River.

Soaring above wetlands and forests, bald eagles hunt for fish in a large lake near the Bush River in Perryman.A group of eight Harford citizens fears such sites could vanish in the future. They worry that the area's woods and wetlands -- a haven for bald eagles, beavers,woodcocks, songbirds and other wildlife -- could one day be developed with houses.To prevent that, the group has formed a non-profit organization, the Harford Land Trust Inc., with the goal of buying scenic sites threatened by development.

The Carroll County Land Trust recently mailed 4,000 fliers to Finksburg landowners in an effort to increase membership and persuade farmers to donate their development rights to the private, nonprofit organization. "We're concentrating on the Finksburg area because of the development pressure there," said Dave Grayson, president of the group, which helps preserve farmland and open space. "We've had quite a bit of interest from Finksburg landowners and are quite pleased by the response."

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The pretrial litigation has reached the five-year mark with depositions and arguments ever growing in Dickensian stacks dense enough to make the judge cry out. "This court has been submerged," complained Judge James Michael here in U.S. District Court. "No more of these 180-page briefs," he ordered the battery of lawyers, as he applied a firm hand to one of the more enigmatic environmental lawsuits inching its way across a highly valued corner of the nation. The civil suit involves a group of preservationists in a rustic antebellum enclave of Louisa County and two strip-mining companies, but not in the usual configuration.

County residents are working to create a private program to save Carroll's rural nature as state and federal budget cuts slowly diminish agricultural preservation funds."

The private, nonprofit Carroll County Land Trust has launched an appeal for funds and land in South Carroll, the county's most populous and fastest-growing area, in a flier mailed last week to 13,000 homes in Eldersburg and Sykesville. The trust is hoping it can protect farmland and open space from development. "The fliers let people know there is such a thing as the trust, who we are and what we do," said Edmund R. "Ned" Cueman, easement coordinator for the trust. "We want people to realize they have the ability to help.

Editor: During the last week of 2011, we were incredibly inspired to see The Aegis feature our organization on the front page and then later that week to read your message of support for the Harford Land Trust mission on the editorial page. Thank you and thanks to all who have contributed to the support of Harford Land Trust over the past 20 years. As the Harford Land Trust board looks forward to the New Year, we found your message to be right on the mark. The way we do land preservation upholds a public benefit that provides value to most everyone.

Timed to coincide with its 20th anniversary in 2011, the Harford Land Trust recently announced the launch of its three-year Campaign to Preserve Our Lands, which is designed to increase awareness and raise funds to further land preservation in Harford County. The goal is to raise $250,000 for its various land preservation initiatives, the Harford Land Trust said in a news release. While the campaign was officially launched at HLT's annual meeting in March 2011, the initial phase of the campaign solicited donations exclusively from current members and past donors, Harry Webster, president of the nonprofit's board of directors, said in the release.

Vacant lots transformed into gardens and playgrounds are bright spots in Baltimore neighborhoods - places for residents to talk, play and even grow food. But the people who clean, plant and tend these plots often have no guarantee that their hard work will not be cleared to make way for development. Now the city has crafted a procedure for residents to permanently claim open spaces. Under a plan approved by the city's spending board yesterday, community groups that nurture a vacant lot for five years will be able to form a land trust to buy the plot for a nominal fee from the city.

Volunteer lawyers and land experts will hold two workshops this week on the Eastern Shore on how to deal with issues of what is known as "heirs' property," or property that has been passed down through so many generations that it is owned by dozens of family members. "One of the biggest reasons that African-Americans have not been able to hang onto family property and family farms is because of a lack of education," said Vince Leggett, director of the African-American Land Trust. Many people do not know what options they have through wills and trusts to protect family ownership, he said.

Two years ago, Maryland banned new ground rents in response to abuses uncovered in an investigative series by The Baltimore Sun. Now, a group of legislators wants to allow the creation of some new ground leases, but with a benevolent purpose: to promote affordable housing. The authority to create the new leases is contained in legislation to foster community land trusts, or CLTs - nonprofit community development organizations that aim to increase the supply of decent, affordable housing by ensuring that property remains affordable even as land values increase.

Although this fact may not have been apparent to readers of The Sun's recent article on the future of the Rosewood Center site ("Hospitals' acreage is lure for developers," June 15), this land is situated directly across the road from the Caves Valley conservation area.

Eight years old and 40 members strong, the Carroll County Land Trust hopes to post its first milestone this year -- preserving 1,000 acres of rich, historic land from rapid sprawl.The nonprofit group, which operates from the home of a former Carroll planning director, has joined forces with the county's Agricultural Land Preservation Program in a goal to save 100,000 acres from development.Members will soon embark on a fund-raising campaign that features an old-fashioned "road show" depicting slides of bucolic Carroll farms threatened by bulldozers.

In response to a Sun item on May 13, "Home again after year in Iraq: Cassilly focused on family, not politics," one fact that wasn't noted was that Robert Cassilly, as a Harford County Council member, received his salary while he was serving in Iraq from March 2006 to the end of his term. In January 2007, Cassilly and his wife, Deborah, confidentially donated $6,000 of that salary to the Harford Land Trust and the rest to other charitable organizations in Harford County. The trust is thrilled to benefit from the unsolicited and wonderfully generous gift.