146-Acre Family Farm Preserved

146-Acre Family Farm Preserved

If you think "open space preservation" and "home construction" don't mix very well, that may be because you don't know the Zaveta family.

For most people in the Bucks County region, the name "Zaveta" is associated with the Zaveta Construction Company, which has been building homes in this region since 1978. But the company's president and founder, Richard Zaveta, also owns a bucolic 146-acre farm in Tinicum Township with his wife Madeline, and they recently worked with Heritage Conservancy to permanently preserve that land with a conservation easement.

Not only did the Zavetas place the easement on their property, but they donated the easement jointly to Heritage Conservancy and Bucks County, along with an endowment that will fund the monitoring of the easement in perpetuity.

"This is a unique property—a mix of agricultural and natural features—that required a unique approach," says Jeffrey L. Marshall, Heritage Conservancy's Vice President of Resource Protection. "It can be difficult to find the right program through which to preserve properties like this. The low-hanging fruit in conservation terms has already been picked. We have to be creative in finding ways to preserve these more complex properties that are not purely agricultural or natural. In this case, we created a multi-faceted easement that protects the variety of natural resources on the land and that also meets the Zavetas' goals for their property."

Tax Benefits of Preserving Land

It's important to note that the path to this preservation success was paved by the expanded tax incentives for land conservation that Congress instituted in 2006. "Once again," says Heritage Conservancy President Clifford C. David, "we thank Congress for their prescience in taking action last year, and we hope that these tax incentives will be extended beyond 2007, so that future conservation-minded landowners will also be encouraged to do the right thing—and be justly rewarded through the tax code."