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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-09-10 Penjajawoc Marsh / Bangor Mall Management Commission Minutes Penjajawoc Marsh/Bangor Mall Management Commission September 10, 2010 ATTENDANCE Commission Members: Jackie Hewett (Chaired) Marion Rudnicki Jim Hinds Cindy DeBeck Tricia Quirk Bradley Medling Jessica Junsujwicz Judy Kellogg Markowsky Staff: Jim Ring David Gould Others: Stacy Gambrel Stephanie Gilbert The Commission met Friday, September 10, 2010 in the City Council Chambers. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. Meeting minutes from July 30, 2010 were moved by Jessica and seconded by Cindy for approval. Stacy provided an overview of the Maine Farmland Trust function history, conserved 17,000 acres of farmland in _______________________________. Agricultural Conservation Easement vol. legal agreement with a land trust assuring agricultural use, private ownership, no future subdivision or development. It doesn’t require public access 90+% of the time. Maine Farmland Trust does annual inspections, certifications of compliance with the easement (i.e. “enforcer”). With a traditional conservation easement and general conservation = habitat preservation. Agricultural easement just assures agricultural use and allows supporting activities for agricultural use, including all agricultural uses not limiting to current agricultural use. Allows for new agricultural buildings, fences, etc. and sometimes easements allowing future house lots. Examples were provided. It was explained there were two types of easements - one would be donated which would require no funding and offer a federal tax deduction for donation to non-profits and may reduce property taxes. The other option was to purchase, which Maine Farmland Trust didn’t have the funds. Dependent upon LFMF and federal program with a 50/50 contribution and usually took one to three years to work through. Another program would be to buy, protect, and sell which would include purchase, applying an easement, and resell to farmers. There have been eight projects since 2007 and five more in 2010. The average size of protected projects was equal to 100 acres. Maine Farmland Trust often used low interest revolving loans and usually resold within a year. They rely on grant programs to cover value reduction, sometimes might reconfigure to allow limited development or subdivide slightly. Maine Farmlink was a program to connect new prospect buyers with sellers and could provide sales, lease, management. There were 57 successful links to date. 1 Farmland viability 2