December 2007


Fellow Gardiner Property Owner:

In November of 2006, in the Town of Gardiner, a $1.5 million bond issue referendum was passed by only ONE VOTE, 961-960. The large anti-bond vote reflects serious questions many voters have about open space conservation easements, which will be purchased with the bond money funded by your tax dollars.

GARDINER RESIDENTS FOR INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, (G.R.I.P.) shares the concerns of Gardiner property owners. We supplied the NO BOND signs seen throughout Gardiner before the November vote. We are now following up by mailing information that will help you make a balanced assessment of conservation easements and other arrangements that restrict use of your land.

Present developments in our area have a direct effect on our properties. For example, the recent acquisition by the Port Authority of Stewart airport, with the plan to make it into the fourth major airport serving the New York metropolitan region. This could drastically change the value of land in Gardiner. Placing restrictions on your land could forever prevent flexibility in use of your land.

The enclosed information is provided from Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc. (PRFA). PRFAs "Informed Consent" checklist is designed to help the private property owner and his legal counsel to level the playing field in dealing with the slick experts who negotiate for the land trusts.

Aggressive land trusts prey upon the elderly, executors of estates, heirs, individuals under real estate tax pressure, and owners of rural land who face all types of expenses as well as government pressure.

After a transaction where property is conveyed to a land trust, property owners may be surprised to see their generously donated, pristine land conveyed to government or to a developer, or even developed by the land trust itself. Or, strapped to pay taxes, a property owner may sell at a low price and the government will afterwards buy the land from the land trust at a significantly higher price, often prearranged before the property owner made the sale to the land trust.

PRFA designed this educational "Informed Consent" checklist to help property owners get a handle on the intentions of land trusts. In dealing with conservation easements, it makes reference to reverter clauses such as those included in railroad deeds 100 to 150 years ago which are now allowing easements and fee simple land no longer used for stipulated railroad purposes to revert to the original owner, or grantor, or his successors in title.

We have also enclosed PRFAs "Renegotiating the Conservation Easement" as a educational tool for anyone who is working with their attorney to renegotiate any existing easements.

It is our hope that the enclosed material will be of interest and use to you if you are considering the sale of development rights on your land. Of course, GRIPs position is that all private property should remain so without deeded encumbrances but that property owners should exercise the utmost caution if circumstances require dealings with a land trust or government agency.

Sincerely,

Pam & Marion

Pamela J. O'Dell & Marion Kells
Co-founders - GRIP