Chatham gets tough on water deadbeats… but

By DEBORAH E. LANS

KINDERHOOK–The Samascott family began farming in Columbia County four generations and more than 100 years ago. Through a transaction that closed in November, the family committed 532 acres of prime farm land to conservation easements that ensure the land can remain in agricultural use in perpetuity. The Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) and Scenic Hudson Land Trust facilitated the transaction. CLC will hold and administer the easements, and Scenic Hudson and New York State, with CLC, furnished the monies to purchase the easements from the Samascott family.

In a nutshell, in a conservation easement transaction, the property owner restricts future development of its property in perpetuity by donating a restrictive easement to a non-profit land trust – the nature of the restriction on the future uses of the land being designed individually in every transaction so as to limit future development of the property according to the particular goals of the project. Because the restrictions diminish the value of the land, the property owner typically receives a tax deduction, equivalent to the amount of the diminution in value.

In certain types of transactions, such as involving farmland, there is sometimes funding available to pay the owner for granting the easement, in lieu of the tax deduction. (Or, the owner accepts less than full value for the easement and also has a smaller tax deduction as well.) In the Hudson Valley, Scenic Hudson along with land trust partners like CLC and aided by state funding, has been preserving farmland through agricultural easement transactions for many years.

The transactions have multiple benefits: first and foremost, farmland is preserved from development at a time when many farmers might otherwise succumb to pressure to sell their land to monetize its value in the face of rising property values, hefty property taxes and because farming is often a marginally profitable enterprise.

In addition, in some easement transactions, the farmer can realize capital that can be used to upgrade or modernize the farm, incorporating new technologies and machinery that the farm could not otherwise afford.

The decision to enter this transaction was made by the 9-member limited liability company that owns the Samascott farm lands and that is, in turn, owned by several generations of the Samascott family. The transaction involved extensive discussion among the generations of the family and with the state, CLC and Scenic Hudson partners, and, because of the Pandemic and other complications, it took about five years to structure and complete.

About half of the family lands are involved – those, says Jake Samascott, that would be most attractive for development and that are also the prime growing acreage: 317 acres along the Stuyvesant Creek and 215 acres in the Village of Kinderhook abutting Sunset and Eichybush Roads and the Empire State Trial and including the U-Pick orchards.

Over its life, the Samascott farm has successfully evolved with the times. In the early 1900s, it was a small dairy farm. Then, Jake Samascott’s grandfather saw the future in produce, and over time bought up more land to plant as orchards. Eventually, the dairy operations were phased out fully, as the next generation focused primarily on fruit production.

Today, the farm grows an amazing 120 varieties of apples, keeps a head of 100 Angus cattle as well as egg-laying chickens, and also grows berries and stone fruit, hydroponic lettuce, bedding plants and vegetables. The farm sells five days each week at New York City farmer’s markets and daily at its store on Chatham Street in Kinderhook.

The funds that the family has received in the easement transaction will allow it to continue its efforts to upgrade facilities, use emerging technologies and adapt to climate change. To mitigate the effects of the increasing unpredictability and volatility of the weather, and particularly the risks of early spring thaws followed by freezing snaps which can doom an apple crop if the trees have blossomed early and then are hit with cold temperatures, the farm has installed expensive wind machines. As Mr. Samascott explains, warm air rises. The downward angled blades of the wind machines draw the rising warmer air back to the trees, with each machine moderating temperatures across a 10-15 acre area by several degrees – often the difference between losing 90% of a crop (at 25 degrees) or only 10% (at 28).

In addition, the farm may erect a covered growing system for its berry crops, particularly the delicate raspberries and strawberries which are at risk in a freeze. Such a system runs cold water over the plants all night, which actually deters damage through freezing.

New crops are also on the table, such as figs in pots, hearty kiwis the size of grapes that can be eaten whole, June berries and honey berries.

Finally, the funding has allowed the farm to replace its many individual hoop greenhouses with an integrated structure that is more efficient.

An innovative element of the Samascott easements — the Preemptive Purchase Right (PPR) — is designed not only to keep the land from development but also to keep it in farming. In essence, if the land is at risk of being sold to a buyer who will engage in a non-farm use (such as residential or commercial development), CLC can exercise a right of first refusal to buy the land instead, and do so at its agricultural value (versus its development value). CLC can also assign its purchase rights to a farmer who can make the purchase. Accordingly, CLC will literally review every potential sale of the land and can step in when necessary to keep the land affordable and in agriculture.

According to Terence Duvall, CLC’s director of Land Protection and Stewardship, this transaction is one of the first involving a PPR in which New York State has participated, through its Farmland Protection program, and it is the first in Columbia County.

To contact reporter Deborah Lans, email deborahlans@icloud.com