Here are notes from the third conversation -
- Something to think about is poverty, its causes, and how much is related to land
- Land ownership is power - political, economic, social
- Issues around policies in relation to institutionalized racism and depressing property values - i.e. home appraisals
- When people are living on the margins, land is often their biggest asset
- Location of where low-income individuals live or own land is often an issue - in flood plains, wetlands, less developable areas, which limits their wealth
- Programs at The Conservation Fund - community forestry and conservation-based affordable housing
- Conservation-based affordable - found that land trusts and CDCs were going after the same chunks of land largely because the land was cheaper; also realized that there was limited funding for affordable housing, but a lot of conservation funding available; idea is to tap into conservation money to create higher quality affordable housing
- One example is an 11 acre tract in Henderson, NC in Vance County - partnership between Gateway CDC and Black Family Land Trust; 1 acre of wetlands has been preserved and no homes will be built on the 1 acre
- Today, health care and technology are broadening options for jobs in rural communities, so that do not necessarily need a place of work
- Access to current technology is a critical issue for rural areas in the future
- Health care will also increasingly be an issue - people are moving back to rural areas in retirement
- Community ownership and forestry - started in the 70s in 3rd world countries; there are also cases in Great Britain and Scotland where the strategy/tactic is a focus on community-based forestry and ecotourism
- There is also an example in Texas through The Conservation Fund - Pineywoods
- In Northern California, The Conservation Fund owns redwood forest land; managing the land differently than industrial owners did; selling carbon credit; partnership with the public utility
- MACED - doing a project in which it has been certified as an aggregator of carbon credits on the Chicago Exchange; has partnered with number of small land owners, working with them on land practices and then determining the carbon credits and selling them on the Chicago Exchange; the individual landowners can then use whatever money they make to pay property taxes, for example
- Rural areas generate positive externalities for urban areas for which they are not being compensated - ecosystem services (clean air, water, etc.); there are examples (NYC) of monetizing the systems that people have been getting for free; connects the urban and the rural
- Suggestions for people to speak with -
1. Becky Anderson - founder of Handmade in America
2. Emory Campbell - former head of The Penn Center in SC
- Other things to think about - What happens when amenity rich areas attract new people (retirees, wealthy people with vacation homes) and long-time residents and landowners are priced out? Are there ways to help the long-time residents stay and hold on to their assets? Perhaps grandfather in long-time landowners or given them other options such as leasing their land for resort development or the like
- Example, perhaps from Jackson Hole, of using a transfer tax to buy agricultural easements for long-term residents and farmers/ranchers - a good amenity rich strategy