CRITERIA OF ACCEPTANCE

To qualify for acquisition by the Woodstock Land Conservancy, the property in question must be located in the WLC service area, defined generally as the northeastern portion of Ulster County, NY and meet a minimum of 5 of the criteria below. Note that if a landowner intends to seek a tax deduction for a donation or bargain-sale, under IRS Code and regulations the property must satisfy at least one of the bold criteria while yielding a public benefit.

- Contains or is adjacent to and buffers a relatively natural and undisturbed wildlife habitat or other sensitive areas.

- Contains or buffers areas of historic or archaeological value or contains a certified historic structure and/or is necessary to protect items of historical interest.

- Contains or is adjacent to and buffers a watercourse, wetland, aquifer, floodplain, or other water resource area.

- Protects scenic views from public roadways, waterways, or recreation areas (especially protected land) and/or is highly visible from numerous points in town, especially when located at higher elevations.

- Offers access for educational or recreational use by the general public, in particular when access to trails will be protected or developed on the property.

- Land that is identified on Town, State, or Federal plans (such as the Town's Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Regulations, or the State's Open Space Plan) as important open space.

- Preservation begins a process of resource or open space protection in a targeted area, and could lead to the acquisition of additional easements or parcels.

- Faces imminent threat of substantial environmental degradation due to potential development, climate change or other man-made activities, and this threat could be mitigated by the WLC acquisition.

- Land that contains prominent and/or unique natural features such as a ridgetop, multi-acre wetland, or intact forested area over 20 acres in size.

- Land that has frontage on a public road or on an existing private road.

- Land that is adjacent to, or in proximity to, other protected lands (e.g. Town, State, NYC owned lands, land protected by a not-for-profit organization, or lands that WLC either owns or has easements on).

- All or part of land is an environmentally sensitive area containing, among other features, freshwater wetlands, watercourses, flood hazard areas, steep slopes, high elevations designated as environmentally sensitive areas on mountain slopes of significance to the community, important plant or wildlife habitat, or other significant natural communities, particularly if documented.

- Land that contains endangered, threatened or rare species, or that protects biodiversity, particularly if documented.

- Land that is valuable to the community as open space in an area currently experiencing, or which may in the future experience, significant development pressure.

- Land that has a prominent position in how people perceive our community and/or is important in preserving the aesthetic or habitat integrity of the landscape.

- Land that has agricultural or forestry significance because of its soils or the presence of timber.

- Land that has significance for its potential educational opportunities.

- Land that is important for protecting and potentially using old historic paths and/or abandoned roads for use by the public.

- Land that is within either High Priority Conservation Areas on WLC’s Strategic Conservation Plan and/or is within a High Priority Climate Change Area as shown on WLC’s 2018 Climate Change Addendum to the Conservancy’s Strategic Conservation Plan.

The following external factors may also be considered to assess whether a parcel is desirable for acquisition:

1. Is the development potential of the property so limited that WLC ownership would not provide any additional conservation benefit?
2. Can it be acquired at a reasonable price relative to similar parcels?
3. Is it likely to generate significant funds from a fundraising campaign?
4. Whether WLC has the organizational capacity to be an effective steward of the property by protecting it from harm and/or opening it to public access.
5. Whether the results from the environmental assessment, survey and title report confirm the expected public benefits of the acquisition or reveal problems.
Cost considerations from the perspective of what WLC will have to expend to acquire the land (if applicable), pay taxes (if applicable), to maintain the land, and open it to public access.
6. Assessment of any tax and economic impacts on the community that will result from the acquisition.
7. Whether there are public benefits to the community.
8. Whether the land is of significant value to the Town or the Village where it is located.
9. Whether WLC retains the right to sell the land to another party, provided that the conservation resources on the property remain protected and the full Board approves this.
10. If there is no conservation value that the Board deems worthy of protecting, then the "Criteria for Evaluating Potential Trade-Lands" should be used as the appropriate guideline for Board review.
11. Whether there is direct access to a public road, access on an existing private road Right-of-Way, or merely non-vehicular access over a legal deeded Right-of-Way to a public road.