The Warren Select Board approved a plan to use $57,000 from the town’s conservation fund to conserve 52 acres of land that will be added to the Roxbury State Forest.
At a March 26 meeting conservation commissioner Kate Wanner along with Gannon Obsorn, land conservation program manager for the state department of Forest, Parks, and Recreation, asked the select board to use the funds for the purchase, something the board had discussed in January.
“We’ve been working with the landowners of those 52 acres on a conservation plan to add those acres to the Roxbury State Forest. And we’ve been talking to the Warren Conservation Commission about how they can help us with that acquisition,” Osborn said.
When the topic was discussed in January, the current owners of the property were in negotiations with a third owner about the value of that third owner’s portion of the property. That value Osborn said has now been established at $57,000.
“I’d like to formally request $57,000 from the Warren conservation fund as unanimously recommended by the conservation commission. The land is appraised at $400,000 and the landowners are donating the rest of the value to the state,” Wanner said.
Wanner said the associated acquisition costs for the purchase are coming from a federal forest legacy grant that had just been awarded and that the state secured. She said that the $400,000 of land value will be used to secure a $2.3 million grant to conserve 2,100 acres in northern Vermont.
Select board member Camilla Behn asked about the current balance in the conversation fund and board chair Luke Youmell said it was $220,000 before voters authorized adding $50,000 to it at Town Meeting. Town treasurer Dayna Lisaius asked about the loss to the town of property taxes on the 52-acre parcel. Osborn explained that the town parcel would be part of the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program which reimburses towns annually for lost property taxes when the state takes ownership of municipal land.
PILOT payments are re-assessed every three years to consider changes in property valuations and a multiplier is added to each municipal payment at each three-year interval.
The transaction on the 52 acres will not happen until later this year, including as late as December. Warren will follow up with a letter of support for the project.
