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American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

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Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#141

Post by JadeNB »

jandrese wrote: post #136
soperj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that just be straight up fraud? They just bought the land for $5.4 million, that was clearly the actual value.

Yeah, but the government would have to prove it in court, which is hard and takes a long time. As long as there are a bunch of other people doing it chances are you will die of old age before law enforcement does anything about it. Lots of rich people crime works this way. Make it hard enough to prosecute and you can get away with it, especially when you can afford to hire good lawyers.

> Yeah, but the government would have to prove it in court, which is hard and takes a long time.

Isn't this "undeveloped in perpetuity" status an application, so that you have to request an agreement to your valuation and the government has to approve it, meaning that the burden of proof goes the other way from your comment? At least, for my personal residence where I have the opposite incentive, it's not that I can go to the local government with a valuation of $3.50 for my house and they have to prove it's not; I can object to their valuation and try to prove my case, but the burden is on me, not on them.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#142

Post by dvdkon »

dyauspitr wrote: post #88
geye1234 wrote: post #20

The UK has a much more intelligent (though far from perfect) approach to land use. It has public rights of way (if on foot, horse or bicycle) crossing the whole country. You can walk from one end of Britain to the other without trespassing, and without using roads (much). Many of these paths are very, very old, in a few cases Roman or pre-Roman, although more are medieval. Until recently, they were based on common la…

I don’t know if I want random people walking through or camping on my land.

You might be more willing if you see it as a kind of reciprocity, your part in a scheme which allows you to hike or otherwise relax on land other than your own.

And even if you never set foot on other's people property, I think it's fair of the government, which ultimately enforces land owners' property rights, to say that they won't support you excluding other people from natural land.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#143

Post by ericmay »

yencabulator wrote: post #128
ericmay wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll tell you what, the Nordics themselves are pretty awful when compared with the Outback or American southwest. You can just roam wherever you want, no questions asked!

Nordics let you roam on private property .

Our national park system in the US is larger than the entire country of Sweden and Denmark and Iceland (or close enough) - depending on how it's defined maybe throw Norway in there too. I don't need to walk through someone's private property to see all this great stuff.

Maybe the Nordics should set aside more public land and catch up to the United States?

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#144

Post by rtkwe »

jt2190 wrote: post #134
placardloop wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public land situation in the western US is vastly, vastly different from the situation in the east. Just like you’re saying comparing the US to the UK are two different situations, you also have to treat parts of the US separately. Almost all of the US’s public lands are west of the Rockies. If you live in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington then you can basically throw a rock and hit some public lands. East…

Your linked source omits state and local managed land. For example compare their map of Massachusetts with this map from the state: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/masswildlife-lands-viewer

State and local managed land is also quite a bit more restrictive than the Federal Public Land you find out West in the US.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#145

Post by renewiltord »

We should not exempt non-profits from property tax. For these conservation projects, it will be a defacto ad valorem tax and it's a good thing. Americans will lock themselves out of prosperity and then blame The Rich, The Politicians, Foreigners and so on rather than allow for the development of the vast acres of land that America has.

Conservation is fine. But perpetual free locking away of land is total bullshit. The highly performative yelling of "we are IN A CRISIS!" while actively promoting said crisis is getting old. I've had enough of it.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#146

Post by scythe »

DennisP wrote: post #117
bix6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

"Boxing out the next generation" is exactly what the law is for. I guess we have to decide whether we want more natural wilderness or more luxury homes with nice views. The only way I can think of to preserve the wilderness without any isolated homes for the wealthy is for the government to buy up the land. I'd probably support that, if we could get it done, but it does mean that if the money for it comes out of the…

The appropriate countermeasure is to allow upgrading land that is sufficiently near an urban area if it will be used to build above a certain density, e.g. 2000 homes per square kilometer. That's already denser than most urban areas in the US, so it wouldn't create sprawl in the sense that we're used to seeing it.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#148

Post by bdamm »

ericmay wrote: post #143
yencabulator wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nordics let you roam on private property .

Our national park system in the US is larger than the entire country of Sweden and Denmark and Iceland (or close enough) - depending on how it's defined maybe throw Norway in there too. I don't need to walk through someone's private property to see all this great stuff. Maybe the Nordics should set aside more public land and catch up to the United States?

I don't want to roam in Yosemite. I want to roam starting from my house.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#149

Post by pests »

DennisP wrote: post #117
bix6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

"Boxing out the next generation" is exactly what the law is for. I guess we have to decide whether we want more natural wilderness or more luxury homes with nice views. The only way I can think of to preserve the wilderness without any isolated homes for the wealthy is for the government to buy up the land. I'd probably support that, if we could get it done, but it does mean that if the money for it comes out of the…

I love how we are trying to make decisions for our descendants. Just like historical buildings.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#150

Post by jmward01 »

I have a friend that grew up near this and he has told me repeatedly that many of the locals are very against it since they believe it takes ranching (their jobs and the local economy) away from the area. It is interesting when this much land, or this much of any resource, is involved how many and how big the secondary consequences can be. That being said, we have to have this kind of thing, but it should be more of a national or at least state wide effort to help make those impacted whole. The US national parks system has proven to be one of the best investments the US ever made. It is too bad that as a country we barely recognize the value to the point that private efforts like this one become needed.
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