SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California conservation groups took advantage of depressed property values during the nation’s recession to snap up vast swaths of land for public use in the Sierra Nevada region.
The Sacramento Bee reported Sunday (http://tinyurl.com/q8r836s ) that conservation groups purchased thousands of acres of land, much of it originally planned for housing developments. Prompted by plummeting real estate values, five nonprofit preservation groups formed a partnership called the Truckee Donner Land Trust in 2007. The partnership has purchased 40,000 acres — roughly the size of the city of Stockton.
Recommended Stories
The parcels stretch along Northern California’s Interstate 80 corridor in the Sierra Nevada.
The holdings include the 3,000-acre Royal Gorge cross country ski resort. Developers paid $35 million for the resort in 2005 and planned to build 950 condos and houses. The conservationists purchased the resort for $11.25 million in the summer of 2011 when the real estate market was near its bottom.
“Royal Gorge is the best example of how a lot of factors, including the recession, created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for lasting conservation,” said Tom Mooers, director of conservation organization Sierra Watch that is part of the investment group. “The fact that we were able to work together and take advantage of that opportunity will be appreciated for generations to come.”
Mooers said real estate prices in the area are now rising and fewer investment opportunities may be available to the conservationists.
“In the next five to six years, we’ll see a lot of speculative money come off the sidelines and propose a lot of development in the Sierra,” Mooers said. “The pressures on the Sierra Nevada will ratchet back up.”
Experts say that preservation groups can often move faster than governments in purchasing land and converting it to open space and public use. David Rolloff, professor of recreation, parks and tourism at California State University, Sacramento, said such conservation groups are filling a vital role left vacant by financially strapped governments.
“Conservancies have filled this important niche preserving open space in the public interest,” Rolloff said.
The conservationists’ efforts reach beyond outright land buys. The groups also negotiate long-term deals with private land owners, who retain title but agree to keep their property as open space.
