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Woman finally protects her land

August 10, 2009 12:36 am

BY FRANK DELANO

Like many people in the Northern Neck, Sharon Faina loves her land.

Now she has helped create a new way to protect it forever.

She calls her 23 acres on Lancaster Creek in Richmond County "a true environmentalist dream property: a bluff overlooking the waterfront, a tidal pond, marsh, swamp, upland wooded area and former cropland now planted in pine trees."

But when she started exploring ways to protect the property with a conservation easement, she found little interest from state agencies or conservation groups.

"I was looking everywhere--The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation--but nobody wanted to deal with 23 acres," she said.

Finally she turned to the Northern Neck Land Conservancy and the Richmond County Board of Supervisors.

"I know this very special parcel of Richmond County will be safe as long as my children, my husband and I have control of it. However, it needs to be protected for the future. Please help me do that," she asked the county in a May letter.

After finding that holding conservation easements presented no obvious problems or burdens to the county, the supervisors voted unanimously in June to co-hold Faina's easement with the NNLC and to establish policies for holding future easements.

In so doing, Richmond County joins Albemarle, Clarke, Fauquier and Goochland as the only counties in the state to accept the easements that prevent or restrict future development of open-space land.

The easements, said Richmond County Administrator William E. Duncanson, are "the ultimate protection of property rights. They allow the current property owner to determine what will happen to that property in perpetuity."

The easements, said Duncanson, "are the only sure way to protect land. Some people think zoning can do do that, but zoning is subject to change by a vote of the next board of supervisors. The easements guarantee what will be there with no decrease in local tax revenue from the property."

Northumberland County may follow Richmond County's lead. County Administrator Kenny Eads said Northumberland's supervisors will discuss holding conservation easements at their meeting next month in Heathsville.

"It's great that Richmond County took that first step," said NNLC Field Director Joseph W. Thompson. "The supervisors were very conscientious and asked a lot of questions, but then they saw there was nothing but good in offering the program to residents."

Faina's easement will also be a milestone for the NNLC, said Thompson. The 5-year-old organization presently co-holds four easements totaling 466 acres with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

But the Faina easement will be the first time the NNLC has developed the required extensive documentation of the property's present condition and committed to its annual inspection, said Thompson. Northern Neck Master Naturalists have volunteered to help in that work, he said.

"Virginia has done an excellent job of constructing its conservation easement program. It's one of only a few states to allow the sale of tax credits that can result from easements," he said.

Thompson often meets with Northern Neck farmers and other landowners to discuss the benefits and technicalities of conservation easements. Some of the properties have been in the same family for 300 years, he said.

"It always amazes me how close the land is to the soul of people in the Northern Neck," Thompson said.

Faina's farm belonged to her grandfather. As a girl, she helped him feed his chickens, goats and cow, helped him in his garden, rode with him on his tractor and helped him fish his crab pots in the creek. He named his skiff Shari after her.

As a harried mother of four children, Faina found refuge when she visited the farm.

"Just being there with him renewed my spirit. It was always that way when I was with him, especially on the farm. I think it vitalized him, gave him strength and kept him young in spirit," she said.

Now 56, she is looking forward to preserving the farm she loves so much. Her easement will limit development of the property to only one additional house. County zoning allows as many as eight houses on the property.

Andrew Packett of Warsaw knows the feeling Faina will have when she records her easement. Last year, Packett donated a conservation easement on his 436-acre farm with a half-mile of frontage on the Rappahannock River.

"It was one of the happiest days of my life. I knew that I had done something good, not just for me and my children, but for future generations," he said.

Frank Delano: 804/761-4300
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com