Ten Things Every Town Can Do To Create or Improve Your Open Space Program

By Michael Catania

These days, open space seems to be on everybody’s mind. Across New Jersey, residents in cities, suburbs and rural areas have discovered the many benefits provided by permanently preserved open space. Public opinion polls, letters to the editor, and local elections all provide testament to the public need and desire for: more athletic fields, playgrounds and developed parkland for active recreation; more trails, forests and open fields for hiking, and nature study; additional protected stream corridors and watershed lands to provide safe and plentiful drinking water; more preserved farms for bountiful local produce and great destinations for hayrides and opportunities to pick your own fruits and vegetables; lower taxes; less traffic congestion; and an overall sense of enhanced quality of life and community which preserved open space can help provide.

As a result, it is no particular surprise that open space preservation currently ranks right up there with motherhood, apple pie, world peace and better schools for our children. It also helps explain why, as of November 2003, voters in some 198 of the 566 municipalities in New Jersey (and all 21 of our counties) have voted to raise their own taxes to pay for local open space acquisition programs.

All of this emphasis on open space preservation makes this an excellent time to analyze the factors which can help insure an effective municipal open space program, and to identify the steps which all towns can take to make sure that they get maximum benefits out of whatever resources and time they may dedicate to their own roles in the race for open space.

Over the course of the last 30 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of local governments on open space projects and issues. Clearly, some towns seem to be light years ahead of others in their efforts to meet their open space goals. And, while funding is obviously important, it also seems clear that it is not just simply a question of local funding that seems to determine where the most progress gets made. So what is it that differentiates the truly successful municipal open space programs from so many others? For your consideration, I’d like to offer the following observations and thoughts on what virtually all of these excellent programs have in common, and to suggest the ten things which every municipality can do to better meet the open space needs of its citizens.

(1) Energize and involve your residents to develop an open space plan for your town.
An obvious attribute of the better municipal open space programs is that each of these towns has created a mechanism to involve their residents in assessing open space needs, developing a vision for their town, and then using a variety of skilled volunteers and local officials to realize that vision. This can take the form of an appointed open space committee, an environmental commission, or both. The common element is the harnessing of local expertise, enthusiasm and experience to determine what your town’s needs are for open space. Local volunteers and officials then collaborate on the development of a formal plan to identify possible ways to meet local needs for open spaces, and to assess and prioritize the existing and potential specific opportunities for meeting those needs.

(2) Become familiar with the county, state, federal and private funding which may be available to help meet your open space needs.
Given that every county has a dedicated open space fund, this is an obvious place to start, as most counties provide grants to their own towns for open space acquisition projects. So does the Green Acres Program of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, in the form of both matching grants and low interest loans, or both. For farmland preservation projects, most counties and the State Agricultural Development Committee also provide cost sharing for the acquisition of development easements on working farms, as well as the fee simple acquisition of farmland. Low cost loans may also be available for local open space projects which protect and enhance water quality through the Environmental Infrastructure Trust, a state agency which also makes grants for the construction of wastewater treatment facilities. Talk to your Congressman and Green Acres about the availability of federal funds for projects in your town. Last but not least, find out if any statewide, regional or local land trusts or other non-profit conservation groups have project areas in your town, or if they are willing to contribute privately-raised dollars to one or more of your land acquisition projects.

(3) Consider establishing (or increasing) your own local, dedicated open space tax.
Since much of the available funding from other sources requires a match, you’ll need to come up with an acceptable and reliable way to raise those funds before you can even ask others to contribute. What’s more, asking local voters to approve such a dedicated tax will also make you eligible for 50% grants from Green Acres (as opposed to 25% grants to towns which have no dedicated local open space funding mechanism), so this will provide some opportunities for great leverage of local tax dollars.

(4) Submit planning incentive grant applications for Green Acres funding.
Once you have identified all of the priority tracts of open space in your town, seek Green Acres funding for your entire project list through the submission of a planning incentive grant application. This will allow you to pursue agreements on multiple tracts, and to use available funds for whichever agreements can be reached first.

(5) Identify a single person – be it your township administrator, solicitor, a non-profit conservation group, or a consultant, to coordinate your land acquisition efforts, especially your negotiations with landowners.
While it takes many people to properly design an open space vision and plan, and many partners to make it all happen, the most effective programs have a single coordinator who speaks for the town when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of negotiations. Don’t let too many cooks spoil your broth, and maximize your chances for success by having a seasoned negotiator represent your interests.

(6) Establish partnerships with as many public and private conservation organizations as possible.
Often times, projects that are impossible for any single party can become quite doable for a consortium of agencies working cooperatively. Partnerships are clearly one of the keys factors for success in reaching your open space goals, so develop as many public and private partners as possible for your projects, and be willing to partner with others on their projects in your area.

(7) Structure your land acquisition projects to achieve maximum leverage of whatever resources you can muster.
Most towns generate relatively small amounts of revenue per year through dedicated open space taxes, and some towns wait for many years to purchase a single small tract of land outright with their own funds. Other towns are more creative and proactive by involving partners, and by negotiating for outright donations or partial donations known as “bargain sales” (where the landowner sells for below fair market value but gets federal and state income tax deductions on the difference). And the real achievers seem to be those towns who have been able to do all of the above plus use their dedicated taxes to cover the principal and interest on the cost of borrowing funds to close transactions, thus allowing them to buy more land sooner and to stretch out the cost of these purchase over the lifetime of a 20 year bond, rather than wait many years to accrue adequate funds to purchase their next property.

(8) Integrate your open space goals into your master plan and zoning. Once you have taken the trouble to plan for open space needs, make sure to integrate your open space objectives with your planning and zoning, so that all local agencies are working cooperatively to insure that your goals are met. There are often ways to meet some of your open space goals through your land use decisions, including open space set-asides in new developments, or providing for trail access through new developments to better connect existing or planned open space.

(9) Develop and use your open space to meet you town’s needs. Remember that open space plan? While some towns declare success after acquiring a key property, others view that as simply the start of the real process, and move quickly to construct trails, playgrounds, parking areas and other facilities to make the vision of open space found in their plans a reality for their residents. The more successful of these towns use a combination of municipal employees and local volunteers (especially their open space committees and environmental commissions) to manage their open space and allow the public to quickly get out and enjoy the fruits of their local investments. These stewardship and management projects can be funded by a combination of local resources, as well as Green Acres development grants and loans, just like an acquisition project. And since nothing breeds success like success, these towns often find that making their new acquisitions accessible actually helps build support and funding for additional projects.

(10) Become more active in state and federal open space issues.
As local governments and non-profit conservation groups work more closely together, they have become a powerful force for additional state and federal funding, and for other conservation policy measures which can help your program succeed. Your town’s involvement in these issues will strengthen efforts to provide additional resources and incentives. It will also provide an excellent opportunity to sharpen your skills by learning from others, and to allow others to learn from your successes as well.

By implementing these ten tips, which are practiced by the towns which have created truly excellent open space programs, you can stretch your open space dollars and maximize the chances for your town to reach its ambitious open space goals. Good luck!

Michael Catania, a former Deputy Commissioner of NJDEP and the past Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy of New Jersey, is the President of Conservation Resources, a new non-profit conservation group that provides technical and financial assistance to non-profits and local governments. He is also the Chairman of the Coalition for Conservation, which ran the successful campaign for Public Question # 1, to provide an additional $150 million for open space acquisition, community parks, and farmland preservation.