| A Summary of Land Conservation Options for Landowners in the Puget Sound Area
This 6-page downloadable brochure summarizes land conservation options and the organizations and people that offer them. The brochures provide a broad overview of available conservation tools, and inform landowners where they can obtain more detailed information and services. Testimonials by landowners who have enrolled in conservation programs are also presented.
A Summary of Land Conservation Options document is available for each of the following counties (PDF files):
Note: Please send updated contact information (contact names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and web sites) to tara.zimmerman@kingcounty.gov. Also contact Tara Zimmerman if you prefer to receive a hard copy of the document (206-205-3203.)
Landowner Testimonial
Brathovde Family Combine Farm Plan and Public Benefit Rating System to Conserve Land
"Our home is located on Rock Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River in southeast King County. The property was first homesteaded in 1906 and the original fencing allowed livestock to graze to the stream edge. Through our involvement with the community preservation group, Friends of Rock Creek Valley, we became aware of the need to keep livestock away from the stream and sensitive wetland areas and the importance of restoring the riparian areas along the stream to improve water quality and habitat of the stream.
We considered a variety of conservation and restoration options before selecting a combination of tools that worked best for our particular needs. We ultimately chose to work with the King Conservation District (KCD) given that we still have livestock on the property. The KCD developed an individualized Farm Management Plan for us including recommendations for pasture, mud, and manure management as well as a restoration plan for the stream bank riparian area. Under guidance of the KCD, we re-fenced the pasture area along Rock Creek creating a minimum 25-foot setback area from the stream bank. The KCD then coordinated replanting of native vegetation in this setback area. All plants, mulch, and tools for the restoration were provided by the KCD, which also coordinated volunteers to carry out the actual planting. Once re-fencing and restoration were complete, we applied to the Public Benefit Rating System (PBRS) to enroll the restored setback area and the adjoining stream, wetland, and timbered areas on our property in the tax benefit program. The property qualified for tax reduction under several resource categories, ultimately giving us an 80% tax reduction on approximately three acres of our property.
The information and assistance we received from all the programs we contacted was terrific, but what we found most important in the process was to consider all of the conservation tools available, then select those most appropriate to the particular situation. In our case, a combination of two programs - a Farm Management Plan with setback restoration combined with a tax reduction through the PBRS - was the most practical and economically viable, and produced a result with which we are very pleased."
Michael and Donna Brathovde, Ravensdale, WA
Photo information: Brathovde Family Land, King County, by Paul Racette
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