Preserving Land in Perpetuity

Since its founding in 1988, Westchester Land Trust’s mission has been to work in partnership with private land owners and government agencies to protect environmentally important lands in perpetuity.  Our Lewisboro Land Trust chapter has played a vital and effective role in our history. In fact, working together Westchester Land Trust and LLT have helped preserve more than 1,000 acres in Lewisboro, more than 600 of which are today open to the public for hiking and passive recreation.

 

The main vehicle for protecting land in perpetuity is the conservation easement – a binding agreement made pursuant to the New York State Environmental Conservation Law, between a land owner and Westchester Land Trust, in which the land owner agrees to give up its right to develop the land and Westchester Land Trust, as the “grantee” under the Easement, is granted the right to enforce the terms of the easement, so as to ensure that the land remains undeveloped and is used for the purposes intended at the time the conservation easement was granted.

 

When the Town of Lewisboro bought the Leon Levy Preserve for $8.3 million in 2005, it did so with a $5.5 million contribution from Westchester Land Trust.  Five million dollars of that was a gift from the Jerome Levy Foundation and $500,000 was a gift from the Dextra Baldwin McGonagle Foundation.

 

In exchange for that contribution, Westchester Land Trust received a conservation easement from the town that protects all 370 acres. The easement provides that the entire property will be “held in perpetuity in an undeveloped state” and used solely for specified “passive recreational activities” by the public. Any use inconsistent with those purposes is prohibited.

 

The conservation easement guarantees the public the right to enter the preserve (all of it, not just selected parts of it). The conservation easement was approved by the town board, signed by the town Supervisor in 2005, and filed with the Westchester County Clerk in 2006.

 

Recently, the Town entered into a lease with the Wolf Conservation Center to allow the Center to build a fenced-in area for some of its wolves on eight acres of the preserve. This contemplated use of the Preserve would entail, among other things, the construction of fences, the grading of land required to create a wolf habitat, the cutting down of trees to make space for the fencing and to prevent falling trees from breaching the enclosures, and the exclusion of the public from those eight acres of the preserve. 

 

These uses are all contrary to the purposes of the conservation easement and are expressly prohibited by its terms. 

 

Westchester Land Trust has commenced a legal action against the town and the Wolf Conservation Center to enforce the conservation easement governing the Leon Levy Preserve. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, are acting pro bono as our counsel in this action. We would have preferred to avoid legal action, but because the town insisted on proceeding with the Wolf Center lease, it left us with no choice but to act.

 

Our Verified Claim against the Town and the Wolf Conservation Center: click here.

Our affidavit explaining the history of the case: click here. (September 27, 2010)

Our memorandum of law: click here. (September 30, 2010)

Our reply brief: click here. (October 12, 2010)

 

Our reply affidavit: click here. (October 12, 2010)

Our November affidavit: click here (November 17, 2010)

Our opposition memo: click here (December 10, 2010)

Our December affidavit: click here (December 22, 2010)

The Leon Levy Preserve Conservation Easement, signed by WLT and the Town of Lewisboro, is here.

 

Westchester Land Trust does not oppose the Wolf Conservation Center’s mission. But WLT is legally obligated to uphold the conservation easement. Our commitment to doing so is an important reason donors agree to contribute land (or the funds to acquire them) for use by the public. If we failed to uphold these easements, donors would lose confidence in Westchester Land Trust’s ability to serve the vital function of grantee under a conservation easement, and might refrain from making significant land grants, with the result that many important properties could be lost to the public, in Westchester and elsewhere.