Item:
Title
Conservation Easement Option with Allen and Cindy Needham and 2019 Agricultural Lands Easement (ALE) Program Grant submission
Body
Date of BOCC Meeting: April 8, 2019
Request for Board Action:
Agenda Text
The Board is requested to approve an option to purchase a farmland conservation easement with Allen and Cindy Needham, and to submit a 2019 federal ALE grant request to assist with the cost of the easement, and to use current capital project funds to support Durham County's required match. The farm consists of 33 acres in two parcels (#193061 and #193064) located on Brickhouse Road in northern Durham County, just south of Old Oxford Road. The property is adjacent to Army Corps of Engineers land for Falls Lake as shown on the attached maps, and is just south of the Amed Tilley farm, another farm that has been awarded funding that is in process. The Durham Farmland Protection Advisory Board recommended approval of a farmland easement on the Needham farm at their February 2019 meeting.
The federal Agricultural Lands Easement Program (ALE) program has a 2019 grant deadline of April 12, 2019. For farms to be eligible to compete for grant funds, the County needs to have a signed commitment (real estate option) between the county and the owner signaling the intent to move forward with the easement. The real estate option gives the County the right but not the obligation to close on the easement. Durham County has been fortunate to receive over $6.14 million in federal funds since 2005 towards conserving permanent farmland in Durham County, with 2107 acres on fourteen farms preserved to date. With a conservation easement the property remains in private ownership, but the county holds the development rights which provides an affordable way to ensure that the farmland is protected permanently. An attachment explains how the value of conservation easements are determined.
The ALE grant funds would be used to pay for 50% of the approved appraised ...
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