Gaston County staff propose conservation easement fund to preserve farmland
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Summary
Natural Resources Director Will Weir presented a proposal to create a permanent conservation easement fund to help farmers sell development rights and keep working farmland. The plan would seed an endowment from existing county revenues and leverage state and federal matching programs; the board asked questions but took no formal vote.
Natural Resources Director Will Weir told the Gaston County Board of Commissioners on Oct. 28 that the county faces rapid loss of farmland and proposed creating a permanent conservation easement fund to buy development rights from willing landowners.
Weir said conservation easements are voluntary legal agreements that let landowners retain ownership while restricting development that would harm conservation values. He told commissioners North Carolina could lose nearly 1.2 million acres of farmland by 2040, and Gaston County might lose more than 11,000 acres — more than 30 percent of the county’s remaining farmland, according to a study he cited.
The proposed fund would operate as an endowment (either at the Gaston Community Foundation or as a county account) and use existing county revenue streams to seed a long‑term program that could attract matching grants from state and federal sources, including the North Carolina Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Weir said the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District currently holds three agricultural conservation easements and that staff help inspect those easements for compliance.
Weir outlined the specific revenue sources presented to the board: 10 percent of revenue from natural‑resources fees (staff stated natural‑resources fees currently generate around $100,000 annually), 20 percent of civil penalties levied through the county erosion-and‑sedimentation program (described in the presentation as totaling about $10,000 per year), and funds collected through present‑use value rollback taxes when farmland converts to development (staff estimated about $65,000 annually). Weir described these allocations as targeted uses of existing revenue rather than new taxes, and said the county could use the fund to leverage matching dollars from the state and federal programs noted above.
Commissioners asked for details. Commissioner Scott Sheehan asked where the three existing easements are located; Weir said they are in South Gastonia (off Union New Hope Road), on the county line near Cherryville and Cleveland, and between Cherryville and Dallas. Sheehan also asked how landowners feel about easements; Weir said the original owners had died and heirs were actively farming the properties. Commissioner Jim Bailey asked whether an easement survives when the owner dies; Weir confirmed easements run with the land and successors are bound to the restrictions.
No formal motion was taken. Staff described the program as a way to provide farmers an alternative to selling land for development by buying just the development rights, and asked the board for feedback on whether to pursue establishment of the fund and potential next steps to return with implementation details.
This was a staff presentation and discussion only; commissioners did not adopt funding or a formal program at the Oct. 28 meeting.
