Ask those who have done so, and you’re likely to hear that both the landowner and the property itself come out winners in these transactions. Landowners because they derive a fair return on their property along with the satisfaction of knowing it will stand as it is well beyond their own time on this Earth.  And the property and those who enjoy it in its natural state because they know….they know that natural state isn’t soon about to be bull-dozed and paved over in the next land rush for development.

The recent conservation easement along Route 360, just outside of Heathsville is a case in point.  What makes it particularly interesting is that it is, by all accounts, a win-win-win transaction: A good outcome for not one property owner, but two…and also for the land involved.

Here’s the way the story unfolds. It all got started when long-time and now-retired Heathsville veterinarian Jim Hundley and his wife Charlotte decided they were going to sell a parcel of about 27 acres on the north side of Route 360. They understandably wanted to sell the property for its optimum value – what it would sell for on the market if it were made available for development. At the same time, the Hundleys did not want to see the land developed.

The Hundleys in 2005 approached neighbor Mason Brent, who lives nearby on a certified “Century Farm” that has been in his family since 1852, first occupied by his great-great-great grandfather. Brent owns and timbers about 400 acres on the south side of Route 360, and another nearly 200 acres on the north side. His property basically encircled the Hundley land, except on the highway side.

A sound businessman from his decades in the propane business in Richmond before he retired to Heathsville in 2001 to timber his farm property, Brent  could not justify paying the development value for a piece of land he knew he would never actually have developed.

“They wanted to sell it, and they didn’t want to see it developed. But they of course wanted the best value for the property, which would be the sale price for development,” Brent explained. “But I knew I would never develop it. I have no desire to ever develop any of the property,” he said.

So what did Brent do? He asked the Hundleys for time to think things through, and they gladly accommodated that request.

It turns out that Brent had been doing some reading about conservation easements.

“Maybe we all could have our cake and eat it too,” Brent reasoned. So he got back to the Hundleys with the notion of their putting their 27-acre plot into a conservation easement. He would put 90 acres of his own contiguous property into an easement, making the total package highly desirable to the Northern Neck Land Conservancy and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

“They would get the financial benefits they wanted from their property” by putting it into an easement and realizing the tax incentives, Brent said.  “Then, after it was in an easement, I would buy that property at the fair market value for agricultural purposes.”

 “That really bridged the gap financially,” Brent said, making it a three-way win-win-win situation for the Hundleys, for him personally, and for the forested agricultural property that serves as a welcome to those approaching Heathsville from the west and as a scenic and friendly farewell to those leaving it from the east. 

Brent points out that the Hundley property on its own – at about 27 acres – might not have gotten the support needed from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation to make the transaction viable.  By adding another 90 contiguous acres – bringing the total property under easement to about 117 acres – the total package became attractive indeed. And the quarter-mile of frontage along the north side of Route 360 made the site all the more attractive from the standpoint of those wanting to conserve agricultural land.

The entire process of going through conservation easements for both properties and the sale of the Hundley acreage to Brent took about six months, and both proceeded more or less in unison. Brent said the arrangement leaves him pretty much free to continue using the land for responsible agricultural and timbering practices.  He notes that in the conservation easement language he reserved rights to build a private driveway from Route 360 to the Coan River, where he has retained a 25-acre parcel of land for possible eventual use as a home site for his children.

 Asked if he took the action as a “feel-good or do-gooder” activity or rather as a sound business decision, Brent replied, “I’d have to say this was a prudent business decision. Because the impetus was to acquire that property, and acquire it at a fair value that my neighbors would be happy with.”

“To the extent that I can save some of it to remain natural forever, I’m excited about that, and I didn’t hesitate at all to throw in that other 90 acres. So in some ways, I guess it is a ‘do-gooder’ action too.”

Thinking back to his youth, Brent recalls his Dad’s frequently telling him that if contiguous property ever were to come on the market, it would sure be a good thing if the Brent family were in a position to buy it if at all possible. His having found a way to do that through a win-win-win conservation easement may just make his Dad’s suggestion a winner in its own right.