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Committee weighs whether towns or land trusts should hold easements and how to hedge legal costs
Summary
Members discussed stewardship costs, when a town should hold an easement versus a land trust, and legal options such as having a land trust hold an executory interest or securing a right of first refusal; Tamworth has a stewardship line in its Conservation Fund to cover legal defense if needed.
During the April 21 meeting, members discussed whether towns or land trusts are the better long-term holders of conservation easements and how to manage the financial and legal burdens of monitoring and enforcement. Ron Albert noted that land trusts are currently stretched and favor donated easements; Caroline Nesbitt raised concerns that town-held easements can become controversies and expensive to defend. Ned Beecher said that "an easement... has benefit even if it gets challenged later" because it generally prevents development for years and can be hedged through legal and financial mechanisms.
Options discussed to reduce risk included maintaining a stewardship fund to pay legal costs (Tamworth currently maintains a stewardship line in its Conservation Fund), having a land trust hold a formal executory or backup interest in the easement, and exploring rights of first refusal or custom attorney-crafted intervention rights when property transfers occur. The committee did not adopt any formal policy at the meeting but asked that these considerations be included in the decision-makers' list alongside the scoring outputs in the next-draft materials.
