The Orange County Board of Commissioners approved Tuesday an agricultural conservation easement on the farm of Ira and Hazel Ward, greatly increasing the amount of land preserved through the county's Lands Legacy program.
The farm consists of 120 acres, 112 of which will forever be preserved as farmland by the county, according to David Stancil, director of the Environment and Resource Conservation Department.
Stancil said the easement is characteristic of the ongoing efforts of the Lands Legacy program, which seeks to preserve natural areas for future generations.
A conservation easement entails the purchase or donation of development rights from landowners in order to ensure that the land is only used for specific purposes.
When it makes an easement purchase, the county buys only the development rights to the land, not the land itself, Stancil said.
"The beauty of the conservation easement is that (families) still own the land," he said.
"If there is a farm that is looking at development pressures and needs some income, they have the opportunity to get 80 percent of what they would have gotten without having their farm made into a subdivision."
The Lands Legacy program has developed five priorities in acquiring land, Stancil said.
He said the program targets areas that are identified natural areas, wildlife habitat and prime forest areas; areas that are prime or threatened farmlands; lands of cultural, archaeological or scenic significance; future park lands; and buffer lands located along watersheds.
