Category Overview
As Washington continues to grow, many of our most beautiful areas are threatened with development. In addition, native ecosystems are receding, and important wildlife habitat and migratory pathways are being cut off. The Natural Areas category helps combat this by funding projects that protect wildlife habitat and rare geological features while also preserving public access for back-country recreation.
Project Highlights
In InkBlot we engaged the priority parcel landowner in a series of discussions. The landowner was only willing to sell any rights to his property if he could replace it with a similar parcel via a 1031 exchange. We talked to a variety of 1031 exchange facilitators, and determined this was not feasible. This was the reason for the project not proceeding. In Schumacher Creek we went through the purchase process and successfully purchased priority property A (Rider). Surveys are completed, and the boundary lines are established. The landowner of priority parcel B was not interested in selling. The landowner for priority parcel C was initially interested in selling their property. We had several discussions with them, which resulted in an appraisal consultation of value. When we presented this possible value range of offer prices the landowners realized they were not ready to sell. They remain interested in selling to us when they are ready, but at this point are not sellers.