State-level incentives for promoting private land conservation in North Carolina
Abstract
Private land conservation confers a number of public benefits, including ecosystem
services, access to recreation, and protection of natural and cultural heritage elements.
North Carolina’s population is expected to grow by more than 30% by 2030, creating
new urgency for conservation priorities such as watershed and open space protection
around the state’s growing population centers. State budget cuts resulted in historically
low levels of public grant funding for nonprofit land conservation in FY 2011-2012.
However, depressed land markets represent a significant window of opportunity for
land trusts to acquire and protect ecologically significant properties from development.
Federal, state, and local governments employ a variety of incentive programs to encourage
private citizens to donate real property to nonprofit land trusts. Following Eugene
Bardach’s method for qualitative policy analysis, I use four criteria - (1) strengthening
partnerships between DENR and nonprofit conservation organizations, (2) minimizing
costs to state agencies, (3) supporting the state’s long-term economic development
goals, and (4) protecting DENR’s authority to oversee future conservation initiatives
- to evaluate seven options for increasing private conservation in FY 2012-2103 in
North Carolina: (a) property tax rebates, (b) reducing present use valuation tax penalties,
(c) transferable state income tax credits, (d) increasing the corporate income tax
deduction, (e) increased appropriations for state trust funds, (f) municipal revenue
streams for conservation projects, and (g) a voluntary conservation offset program
for housing developers. In order to promote private land conservation in FY 2012-2013,
I recommend that the North Carolina General Assembly remove the tax penalty for lands
switched from present use valuation categories to dedicated conservation programs,
encourage municipalities to develop alternative revenue schemes for funding conservation,
and create a statewide voluntary conservation offset program for developers.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
The Sanford School of Public PolicyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5268Citation
Selbst, Elizabeth (2012). State-level incentives for promoting private land conservation in North Carolina.
Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5268.More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Sanford School Master of Public Policy (MPP) Program Master’s Projects
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info