Vermont Land Trust Press Release - Meeting the Need for Housing and Conservation: Tinmouth Protects What Makes it Unique

For Immediate Release: October 20, 2006
For more information, please contact:
Elise Annes, Vice President for Community Relations at 802-223-5234
Bob Lloyd of the Tinmouth Land Trust at 802-235-9016

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Meeting the Need for Housing and Conservation:
Tinmouth Protects What Makes it Unique

TINMOUTH, VT – Tinmouth is like many small Vermont towns faced with soaring property values. Homeownership is out of reach for many locals, there is limited available housing for families with school-aged children, and new farmers have a difficult time accessing quality, affordable farmland. These are critical issues for a community that prides itself on its agricultural roots and community ethic. In a recent successful collaboration, the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) and the Tinmouth Land Trust (TLT) came together with the Town and local landowners to purchase the development rights on Sam and Faye Hepburn’s 96-acre farm that is leased by a local dairy farmer. The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) provided funding for this effort.

As leverage for VHCB funding, the Wright Family pledged ten acres of nearby land to TLT for the development of affordable housing. Simultaneously, the Hepburns agreed to make available four house lots for affordable housing, in the event of a future, out-of-family sale.

“People in Tinmouth have always looked after each other,” said Gail Fallar, Tinmouth Town Clerk and State Representative. “A critical part of that is making sure that working families can afford to live here.”

The conservation easement includes an option to ensure that the land remains open and affordable to future farmers and protects two important springs that feed into the Tinmouth Channel, a Class I Wetland.

Sam Hepburn was six months old when his family moved to the farm. While he and Faye have made room for numerous children and grandchildren to build on the farm, they wanted to protect the farm’s tillable land and forest resource. Referring to his family, Sam said, “I’d like them to be able to leave it just the way it is.”

In a recent Planning Commission survey, Tinmouth town residents ranked the presence of working farms as their highest priority, well above scenic views. “How people use and treat the land is more important to Tinmouth residents than what it looks like,” said Bob Lloyd of TLT and the Tinmouth Planning Commission. In an effort to keep agriculture as part of the town’s economy and character, TLT and VLT have conserved several working farms in Tinmouth. Because of its current land patterns, there is a relatively small amount of land available for residential expansion. For this reason, TLT and Town officials are exploring ways to develop affordable family housing in areas that are neither ecologically sensitive nor agriculturally critical. Now, when TLT targets land for conservation, consideration is given to whether that parcel could or should support affordable housing.

For Tinmouth to protect its character and economy, the town needs affordable farmland and homes. As Bob Lloyd says, “We all want the children growing up in Tinmouth to be able to stay in town if they wish.”

The Vermont Land Trust helped the Hepburns conserve their land through the use of a conservation easement. An easement helps landowners voluntarily limit development on productive farmland and forestland, and other meaningful natural and community places. Landowners continue to own, manage, and pay taxes on the land and can sell their land; however, the conservation easement permanently remains on the property.

The Vermont Land Trust is a nonprofit organization that works with individuals, organizations, and communities to conserve land for the future of Vermont. In the past 29 years, VLT has helped conserve more than 1,300 parcels of land covering over 455,000 acres, or about 8% of the private, undeveloped land in the state. The conserved land includes more than 600 working farms, hundreds of thousands of acres of productive forestland, and numerous parcels of community lands. This conservation work changes the lives of families, invigorates farms, launches new businesses, maintains scenic vistas, encourages recreational opportunity, and fosters a renewed sense of community. For more information, call (802) 223-5234 or visit VLT on the web at www.vlt.org.