A recent article profiled Tagge’s Famous Fruits and Veggie Farm in Perry where the owners have placed their 130 acres of fruit trees and fields of vegetables into a legacy trust claiming the land is protected forever. It is not. The instrument being used — a legacy trust — will not permanently protect this land from development. That can only be done with a conservation easement placed on the property.
Utah’s state code and the federal internal revenue code clearly spell out how land can be permanently protected from certain uses — namely residential and/or commercial development.
And certain entities must be the holders of these easements including land trusts (501(c)(3) public charities), private foundations and government agencies (i.e., Utah Department of Agriculture and Food).
Having a third-party easement holder assures that the land will be protected from unlawful uses through annual monitoring of the property. These entities can legally take judicial action should the landowner start to use the property in a manner contrary to the terms of the deed of conservation easement. The easement holder is the watch dog.
With a legacy trust, the landowners themselves have management control and when they pass, that control passes to heirs. Those heirs can remove the land from the legacy trust and sell it to the highest bidder. Conservation easements are tools used by landowners when they want the property to remain in its natural state in perpetuity. Even if sold to another party, the land remains protected. The easement runs with the land.
Read Utah Code Title 57 Chapter 18 — Land Conservation Easement Act or Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S. Code Section 170(h)). Both spell out requirements to assure that land is preserved in its natural state and protected from development in perpetuity.
Deborah Van Noy, Logan
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