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Clean Ohio Fund in voters’ hands

By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio voters will vote in November whether to reauthorize the Clean Ohio Fund, a program that has preserved green space and farmland, improved outdoor recreation and revitalized blighted neighborhoods by cleaning up and redeveloping polluted properties.

A vote last Wednesday by the Ohio Senate affirms an earlier decision by the Ohio House of Representatives to place an issue on the Nov. 4 ballot that, if approved, will provide a total of $400 million for the Clean Ohio Fund – $200 million to preserve wildlife habitat and farmland and provide recreational trails, and another $200 million to clean up polluted industrial sites. Because Clean Ohio is funded through the sale of general revenue bonds, voter approval of this ballot issue will not raise taxes.

“Nearly every county in Ohio has benefited from the Clean Ohio Fund since it was first passed in 2000,” said Denise Franz King, director of government relations for The Nature Conservancy in Ohio.

“Ohioans have watched as abandoned industrial sites have been renewed, new park land has been set aside, farms have been preserved and trails have been built.”

To date, the Clean Ohio fund has protected more than 26,000 acres of wildlife habitat, more than 20,000 acres of farmland, created 216 miles of recreational trails and cleaned up more than 140 abandoned industrial sites (known as brownfields).
Sign up for the 2008 Clean Ohio Ag Easement Purchase Program (AEPP) concluded last month. The fund was estimated to distribute $3.125 million to farmland owners wanting to keep their land forever in agricultural use in 2008.

As AAEP has been administered to date, the Ohio Department of Agriculture uses those funds to purchase farm easements from landowners who score the highest in the state’s competitive application system.

“Our program was originally created as a pilot, and each year we’ve enhanced it to better support Ohio’s preservation needs,” said ODA Director Robert Boggs.

“Gov. (Ted) Strickland’s Building Ohio Jobs proposal, a $1.7 billion investment in Ohio’s economy and infrastructure that will create tens of thousands of new jobs, includes a $400-million bond renewal for the Clean Ohio Fund. If passed, this money will help to continue preserving the state’s most valued natural resource for generations to come.”

To apply for the program, farmers have thus far been required to work through a sponsoring organization such as a local land trust, a Soil and Water Conservation District or group of local officials.
These sponsors submit applications on behalf of interested landowners – who are also required to be enrolled in a Current Agricultural Use Valuation, must be located in an agricultural district and are willing to donate at least 25 percent of the easement’s points-based appraised value.

Applicants were scored on factors including development pressure, soils, proximity to protected properties, local development and preservation initiatives and farm conservation plans.

The program has purchased development rights on land in the Ohio counties of Ashland, Butler, Clark, Defiance, Fairfield, Fulton, Geauga, Greene, Holmes, Knox, Lucas, Madison, Marion, Miami, Montgomery, Portage, Preble, Sandusky, Seneca, Trumbull, Warren and Wayne – approximately one-quarter of the state’s 88 counties.
Through the agricultural easement program, landowners agree to keep land in ag use and give up the right to develop it. This is done through an agricultural easement, which is a voluntary, legal agreement that limits the use of land to only ag use. Landowners retain ownership and management of the land, and can sell or pass along their farm to others. The easement permanently remains with the land, however, prohibiting any future non-farm development.

The program grants up to 75 percent of the points-based appraised value of the farm’s development rights. In recent years, a payment cap has been set at $2,000 per acre, with a maximum of $500,000 per farm.

Since the Clean Ohio AEPP began in 2002, the state has successfully preserved more than 23,600 acres, including several pending agreements from 2007, with approximately $22 million.
This is only part of the $400-million Clean Ohio bond package passed by voters in 2000, which allocated money to farmland preservation, Brownfield redevelopment, “rails to trails” and the protection of open spaces.

The Clean Ohio program is the only part of Stickland’s economic stimulus package that needs to go to the ballot. Components of the infrastructure portion of the package include $200 million for Clean Ohio Conservation to fund the preservation of farmland and green space, another $200 million for Clean Ohio Revitalization, $100 million for logistics and distribution, $200 million to help build local infrastructure and $120 million in historic preservation tax credits.

6/4/2008