More Details About The Land...

Since starting this blog, I have received feedback from some of the blogs followers asking if I could provide a little more info on the piece of land that I'm trying to save. The heavily wooded property which is just under 44 acres is currently enrolled in the “clean and green” act. Clean and Green is a preferential tax assessment program, that bases property taxes on use values rather than fair market values. This ordinarily results in a tax savings for landowners. The Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted the program in 1974 as a tool to encourage protection of the Commonwealth's valuable farmland, forestland and open spaces. Currently, more than 9.3 million acres are enrolled statewide. The eligibility for a property on "Clean and Green" states that the property must be ten acres in size, and in Agricultural Use, Agricultural Reserve, or Forest Reserve. Agricultural Use applications may be less than 10 acres in size if the property is capable of generating at least $2,000 annually in farm income. In a nutshell this means that as long as the property stays the same (no structures, no roads, etc) the annual property taxes on the property will remain low (around $300.00 a year). My intent is to keep the land enrolled in the "Clean and Green" act and not to make any changes what so ever to it. Per the real state agent who I have been speaking with about the property, the property itself would also come with one “building right”, that if someone in the future wanted to build a structure (ie. house, barn, etc) on this property it would not be a problem with the township. I explained to the real estate agent that this is something that I did not believe I would have a use for but he instructed me that without this "building right" that the property itself would hold no value and that if nothing else it is always better to have a "building right" and not use it than to have a property that has no "building rights". As I said before I do not plan on doing any type of building on this property as I want to keep it as natural as possible. The real estate agent also suggested that at some point it may be a wise idea to have someone come into the property to do a timber harvest, while this would help to pay some of the yearly property taxes on the property I have not explored the option enough to know for sure if this is something I would be interested in pursuing.

Getting Everything Setup

In hopes of reaching more people about my goal/story, I have setup a Twitter Follow @chaddsmith68 and Google+ account along with submitting an application to Google Ad Sense.  With any type of luck within two days I should be able to start displaying Google Ad Sense ads on the sidebar of this blog.  I plan on using all the revenue I make from the Google ads towards my goal of purchasing the land.  If you have any suggestions of other social media accounts and/or pages that I should look into joining please do not hesitate to drop me a line.

Saving The Hunting Land - The Back Story

My name is Chadd and I live in York County, PA.  Like many of my other fellow hunters I believe that every year it is getting harder and harder to find a good hunting location.  It seems as the state gamelands are getting smaller each year and not to mention that the state land is polluted with no ethic hunters (ie. no respect for the land or the animals they hunt).  Two years ago I was given the permission to start hunting on a private piece of farm land which is located in southern part of York County.  The farm is a little over a 100 acres and it made up of 80% crop plots and 20% woods.  The farm is surrounded on three sides by other farms and the fourth side is a very nice heavily wooded property. Over many days of hunting and scouting it has come to my attention that the deer are using the wooded property as their bedding area and sanctuary as no one is permitted to hunt on that land. Although the farm is not producing any record breaking bucks at this point I still thought it would be a good idea to start practicing the methods of the QDMA program while hunting on this property as the crops that are being grown offer the ability to really help produce some bucks.  Well two years later as luck would have it, I have just been informed that the wooded property located directly next to the farm property is going to be put on the market for sale.  Due to the location of this wooded property there is a very good chance that the buyer will redevelop the land into something more commercial, thus eliminating the woods and the sanctuary as the deer have come to know it.  Once I was informed that the land would be going up for sale I contacted the sellers real estate agent and was told that the seller has another property in York County that he is eager to start developing on ASAP so this piece of land would be sold greatly under market cost, just over 100,000 dollars.  Since my wife and I just purchased our first house (100+ year old “starter house”) about three years ago and since then we have had our first child, so we are in no position to purchase the land, as we would not be able to afford the full second mortgage. I have tried to come up with numerous different ways of being able to save this property from being sold and redeveloped but always come back to the harsh fact that I just don’t have enough money to make it happen.  As a last ditch effort, a friend of mine named Travis, suggested that I try reaching out to other hunters and wildlife preservers via the internet and tell my story in hopes of someone being able to help.  Travis introduced me to a software app called ChipIn  which allows people to contribute money (any amount, even a $1.00 is accepted) towards a project while keeping track of the overall financial goal.  Since I would only be able to afford a mortgage of 20k, Travis suggested that I set the overall financial goal for 80,000 dollars.  My goal is through the use of the internet (via hunting forums, twitter, etc) and word of mouth that I can come in contact with enough good hearted people that can spare donating a few dollars towards this cause and reach my so that I can purchase this land and preserve it just as nature had intended.  Below I have listed a link to my ChipIn page. Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to help me reach this goal, I truly appreciate it!!

http://chaddsmith.chipin.com/preserving-hunting-land