Conservation Groups Buying Up Land While the Getting Is Good
Decatur Metro | December 31, 2009 | 2:52 pmLooking back on it, few should be surprised that preservation efforts, both historic and environmental, were so aggressive prior to 2008. The construction industry, which single-handedly does more to alter the natural and urban landscape than any other entity, was building at an artificially fast pace, boosted by demand that really wasn’t there.
So it should also be no surprise that in a post-boom era, conservation groups are making up for lost time, buying up land for a fraction of the price it once demanded.
From the New York Times…
The victories [for conservation groups] reveal a green lining of sorts in a credit crisis that has depressed real estate prices, spawned foreclosures and derailed development projects across the nation.
The purchases by conservationists and state and local governments assure that thousands of acres will be put aside in perpetuity for parks, watershed protection or simply preservation of open space.
“We are getting a second bite at properties that never should have been developed in the first place,” said Will Rogers, president of the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit group that buys land for preservation. “We are working on dozens of these deals across the country, and I know other land trusts are as well.”
Hey, DM — Can you clarify what you mean by “demand that really wasn’t there”? As I see it, demand for anything is always conditional, depending on the circumstances. Ecoli shows up in beef and demand for chicken and pork go up. Leonardi DiCaprio shows up in Us Weekly driving a Prius and suddenly Toyota sees a visible spike. Etc.
In the case of housing, the appearance of fast appreciation, easy financing and low interest rates increased demand and then, when banks started failing and financing dried up, demand dried up with it. But at the time developers were going hog wild, the demand they were responding to was very real, wasn’t it?
It may just have been my poor choice of words as I was being pushed out the door. Perhaps I should have said “funding that wasn’t really there?”
All I was getting at was there seems to be a balance in this sport of “development”. Everyone has a different tolerance for changes in their landscape, but ultimately it seems like there is a point where enough people get uncomfortable with the amount of change going on and start to respond. Usually that response comes after there’s been some sort of propping up of development monetarily (think urban renewal, the GI bill, and the ’00s easy financing), but at the end of the day it always seems to come back to a more palatable level.
Today, the pendulum has swung far back in the other direction, thanks to huge swings in land pricing, so it’s not surprising to see conservation groups buying up land, which inadvertently begins to relevel the playing field.
I think this is great news, and a real win for lands like the Everglades. I saw first hand the destruction uncontrolled development had on the Everglades, so this is good to hear.
Of course, when the real estate market heats up again, as it eventually will, there’s going to be a lot of wrangling over these lands. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of eminent domain attempts by developers promising to bring more tax revenues to government coffers.
Native American tribes are buying back their land too. They could probably ultimately get their land back through legal hassles and lawsuits, maybe in 30-50 years if they were lucky. For now, they have decided on a stop-gap program in some states to simply use tribal funds to purchase the land that is able to be purchased on the open market. The legality and morality of forcible European invasion and settlement of “America” are not taken for granted in some quarters. One of the most obnoxious Christmas cards I received this year shows three Native American children in full tribal dress looking up in awe at the coming of JC (the star the 3 wise men saw) in the sky. I have as much respect for Christian belief as I do for other religious beliefs, but to juxtapose this clash of cultures on a Christmas card on the basis of a false assumption takes the cake, I do believe. Sorry if my train of thought went off the tracks/tracts here…
Wow, that takes the cake, all right! Part of me doesn’t even like hearing about something like that but for the most part, I think it’s a good idea to keep an eye on what’s out there in terms of extreme and illogical thought trains and viewpoints.