Can Land Trusts Become Partners in Coastal Adaptation and Retreat?

Bethel Beach in Mathews County, VA showing the need for adaptation action.

Snapshot: Government cannot fund all of the adaptation and retreat needs along America’s coastline. In looking for additional resources, we started exploring the use of land trusts, conservation easements, and conservation tax credits to accelerate the process. We are looking at the use of land trusts to take over parcels cleared via FEMA funds and restoring the coastal ecosystems that were destroyed during development. We are also looking at using land trusts and conservation tax credits to help people get our of harm’s way.

Backstory: As the magnitude of the coastal adaptation and retreat work becomes apparent, it is obvious that current approaches will not work in time.

Government programs are underfunded, poorly focused, and incomplete. Programs under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) do not cover every at-risk structure, are underfunded, and involve long delays. US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) programs are oversubscribed: there is currently a $98 billion backlog in funding needed for approved projects. State and local governments do not have the resources to step in.

As sea level rise and increased rainfall intensity put more homes and businesses at risk, the urgency for solutions increases. At the same time, local governments that ARE able to use FEMA funds to clear parcels are stuck with restrictive conditions imposed on those properties, conditions that are costly and prevent many alternative uses for that shoreline land.

Virginia has one of the most progressive land conservation tax credits in the country. What if we could figure out a way to use land trusts and conservation easements to address some of these shortcomings?

What if we could take the properties under restrictive FEMA easements and transfer them to a land trust and do innovative things with the parcels - restore wetlands and ecosystems, generate stormwater credits, maybe even set up wetlands banks that could generate funding to buy the next parcel?

What if we could use a land trust and conservation easement to generate a tax credit for the owner of a frequently flooded property, allowing the property owner to recover part of the value of their soggy parcel? What if we could put a “rolling easement” on that property that would allow the owner to stay there for a time, until a trigger point is reached? Maybe let them stay until the property damage hits a certain amount or the flooding frequency hits a threshold of risk?

We are partnering with the Living River Trust, an urban land trust working in Southeastern Virginia. We are also partnering with the cities of Chesapeake and Norfolk to explore this promising approach.

We’re in the early stages of this and welcome input and conversation. We’ll keep you up to date as we make progress.