Nearly 8,000 acres conserved

From a sliver of land in McClellanville to a sprawling forest tract of more than 800 acres, Charleston County has been building an inventory of land that is off-limits to developers.

Financed by the half-cent sales tax that voters approved for transportation projects and green space, the county's Greenbelt Bank Board so far has approved 14 deals to protect nearly 8,000 acres of rural land. The board also has approved 26 purchases of land in urban areas, protecting another 437 acres, over the past two years.

County officials and volunteer board members who oversee the program are pleased with the progress so far, although it's clear the program could eventually run out of funds before the land-protection goals are fully met.

"After just two years, we've met about 25 percent of goal for both the urban and rural programs," said Kurt Taylor, who oversees the county's half-cent tax program. "I think that's amazing."

The greenbelt program aims to protect 40,000 acres, mostly rural lands and wetlands, with $95 million in funding. The rural and urban lands purchased so far, or protected with conservation easements, actually meet 21 percent of that goal, but the money spent so far amounts to nearly 40 percent of the total funding.

"I think it's too early to reach any conclusions about running out of money," Taylor said.

While the urban land program generally purchases smaller tracts that might become city parks, the rural program focuses on conservation easements that often leave huge tracts of land in private hands but prevent future development.

About 80 percent of the rural acres protected have been easement deals.

In an easement agreement, landowners team up with a nonprofit group, which arranges to use county greenbelt funds and other sources of money to buy the development rights for a property. The difference between what's paid for the easement and what the land would have been worth for development becomes a donation to the non-profit group, generating a federal income tax deduction and a substantial state income tax credit.

"I think if you're going to keep your land and not develop it, this is the best thing since canned beer," said Edwin Cooper, a member of the Greenbelt Bank Board who was chairman in 2008.

During 2007, the first year of the program, there was a rush to take advantage of easement arrangements because it was thought at the time that some federal tax benefits were about to expire, according to Cathy Ruff, Charleston County's director of greenbelt programs.

On average, the county has paid just under $3,000 for each protected rural acre, though the cost has varied greatly.

Easement deals have cost as little as $748 per acre and as much as $4,924.

Land purchases have been far more costly because the county is buying the property for public use rather than buying the development rights and leaving the property in private hands. Rural land purchases approved by the county have cost between $2,000 and $100,000 per acre, with the most expensive per-acre being a property just one-fifth of an acre in size in the heart of McClellanville.

Most of the rural land protected so far is in McClellanville and on Edisto, Johns and Wadmalaw islands.

With the real estate market in a steep decline, officials are hopeful that the greenbelt program will benefit from better deals, but they won't know until the next round of applications arrives around the end of this month.

"What we've seen with this change in economic conditions is, I've been getting more calls," Ruff said. "If you look at what's been spent and what's been protected, it looks like we may not meet that 40,000 (acre) goal, but a project could come in that would change all that."

Cooper, of the Greenbelt Bank Board, said the board had hoped for more state and federal funding to help meet land protection goals.

"However, the state conservation bank has been essentially zeroed out, and federal money for things like the Francis Marion forest has totally dried up," he said. "I think we've done a good job of stretching the dollars."