Peter Galuszka has filed a Road to Ruin story about the dispute over the use of tax credits as an incentive for landowners to create conservation easements. The environmental community defends the tax credits as one of the most cost-effective tools available for protecting valuable open space, viewsheds, watersheds, habitat for endangered species, and properties of historical value. Conservation easements cost a fraction of buying land outright, and they don’t trample on property rights.
On the other hand, there are legitimate issues associated with the tax credits. The liability to the state has soared, reaching $130 million in 2004. And the program, which is little policed, is subject to abuse and manipulation by unscrupulous landowners. Despite their disagreements, it appears that the Senate and the House of Delegates are groping toward a reform of the program and a compromise that would cap the amount of tax credits granted in any one year.
As an aside to readers who love inside political baseball, the article provides details on the $28 million in tax credits claimed by the Silver Companies, developer of the Celebrate Virginia project in Fredericksburg. From what we hear, Sen. John Chichester, a moving force behind the tax credit crack-down, is not a big fan of Silver Companies developments, which have unalterably changed the face of Fredericksburg — many would say for the worse.
A final observation, filed in the “Irony” folder: the Silver Companies are the prime driver of the kind of dysfunctional settlement patterns in the Fredericksburg area that the conservationists are so opposed to.
