Terry Stokka has lived in Black Forest for 29 years. He is president of the Friends of Black Forest, chairman of the Black Forest Land Use Committee and chairman of the Black Forest Water & Wells Committee.
By Terry Stokka
You probably have heard about easements and wondered what they are. Maybe a little primer will help fill in the blanks on this little-known phenomenon.
In the simplest terms, an easement is permission for someone else to use a portion of your property for some purpose. Easements can be above ground, underground or both. The most common easement is the one that exists around the border of almost everyone’s personal property. This easement is usually 5 feet on either side of the property line and is dedicated to the utility companies if they need to run a power cable, gas line or fiber optic cable across your property. When you signed the closing papers for your property, the deed specified what easements existed. The utility companies don’t have to ask for your permission to dig a line along your property boundary, but they must return the property to its original condition.
One unique easement I have seen occurred when a property owner was landlocked and had no access from his vacant lot to a road. He petitioned an adjoining owner to allow him to run a driveway across the neighbor’s property to access his vacant lot so he could build a house. I suspect he had to pay the neighbor some money for that permission and had to meet certain conditions to maintain the driveway, or the easement might be vacated or deleted. In this example, the first owner only made a few trips a day on the easement, but when he sold the property, the new owner turned the vacant lot into a commercial business, resulting in traffic from 10 to 20 employees, as well as many large delivery trucks coming and going all day long. Since the easement didn’t specify the number of vehicle trips allowed, it is difficult to enforce a lower traffic count, and the unfortunate neighbor had to endure the increased traffic.
Many landlocked lots have a built-in “flagpole” to provide access to the lot from the nearest road. A flag is a narrow strip of land, typically 15-20 feet wide, owned by the landlocked owner, which allows them to build a driveway to access their lot. The county land planners work to ensure that every property owner has access to roads, so these flags are built in when property is platted. Some properties have a long flag that leads to their home, set far back from the road.
A conservation easement is a different type of easement. Federal law allows you to file a conservation easement on your property, which locks the property into certain limits and prevents any changes or development beyond that. Most conservation easements involve large ranches where the owner wants the property to remain undeveloped. Regular property is appraised at its value if developed, but with a conservation easement, the property is appraised at the value of undeveloped pasture or open space land, which is much lower. The property owner can take a tax benefit on the reduced land value in exchange for not allowing development. The conservation easement can state that the family is able to build one or more new homes or buildings if they wish. The idea is to lock properties into perpetual undeveloped land for conservation. Some people and many developers may balk at this idea, as they don’t like to see property set aside from being developed, but others argue that it is fair for a property owner to decide they want their property to remain undeveloped forever, even if it is sold. Conservation easements go with the land, so anyone who buys the property must abide by the easement and not develop it.
County roads normally have a right-of-way of 60 feet from one fence line across to the other. The road surface itself is 10-12 feet for each lane, plus maybe 2-4 feet for each shoulder, leaving about 15 feet of ditch on either side of the road. This property is owned by the county, so it is actually a large easement for overhead power lines, fiber optic lines, gas lines and underground power lines to be placed in the ditch for ease of installation and maintenance. In some cases, the utility will actually install the lines in the middle of the road, as we saw when the Cherokee Metropolitan District installed their waterline across Black Forest.
Check your closing paperwork for your home and lot to see what easements are specified on the deed for your property. It might be an interesting and eye-opening exercise.
