Conservation Easement
Planning and Advocacy

Complementing the easement program are our efforts in community planning and advocacy. We undertake these activities recognizing that we can not conserve every acre of land in the Red Hills Region. Tall Timbers is not anti-growth. Rather, we support smart growth that is fiscally responsible, enhances local communities and protects the natural, scenic and cultural resources of the Red Hills. Tall Timbers works cooperatively with local governments and the public developing their communities’ comprehensive plans, local ordinances, and visioning initiatives to ensure that the Red Hills’ interests are included in these planning processes.

Blueprint 2000

Tall Timbers was an active participant on the Economic and Environmental Consensus Committee (EECC), a diverse group of Leon County, FL citizens who represented business and environmental interests in the community and were the authors of the Blueprint 2000 and Beyond report. The EECC developed a series of critically needed community initiatives focusing on holistic infrastructure, including stormwater, transportation, and greenway projects. On election day 2000, nearly 62 percent of voters approved an extension of the one-cent sales tax to the year 2019 to raise $700 million to fund the gray and green infrastructure projects. Click here for an update on the progress of the Blueprint 2000 initiative.

Community Planning Outreach

In addition to our role in Blueprint 2000, TTLC staff has represented the conservation interests of the Red Hills in many important projects. These include serving on the steering committee for the Thomasville-Thomas County Comprehensive Plan update; participating in the update of the Leon County and Jefferson County Comprehensive Plans; serving as a Commission-appointee on a committee to revamp recommending changes to Leon County’s permitting process; serving on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee of the Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency; and lobbying local governments on a wide range of growth-related issues affecting the Red Hills.

Cost of Community Service Studies

1000 Friends of Florida, The Conservation Fund, The Georgia Conservancy and Tall Timbers Research Station, with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, commissioned Cost of Community Services (COCS) studies for three counties in the Red Hills Region: Grady, Thomas, Leon. Their purpose was to determine the financial impact of different land uses on these counties’ tax bases.

The results of the studies were that:

• Farms and forestland generate between 49 and 163 percent more in revenue than they require in public services.
• Commercial and industrial lands contribute significantly more revenue than they demand in services.
• Revenue generated by residential land uses falls short of the actual cost of providing services by between 28 and 42 percent.

The publication that resulted from these studies, The Cost of Community Services – The Value of Agricultural Lands & Open Space in the Red Hills Region of Southwest Georgia and North Florida, summarizes the results of each of the three technical studies. This publication also contains information describing the increasing attention local governments are paying to alternatives to costly, sprawling patterns of development and describes the benefits associated with well-planned growth.

Ochlockonee River Initiatives

The health of the Ochlockonee River has long been a concern for Tall Timbers. The TTLC currently holds conservation easements on more than 55,000 acres in the Ochlockonee River basin including 15 miles of river frontage. To help protect the Ochlockonee and provide an opportunity for the public to connect with the region’s largest river, TTLC staff have helped coordinate a number of Ochlockonee River clean-ups at which nearly 400 volunteers have removed more than 30,000 pounds of trash from this designated Outstanding Florida Waterway.

To increase awareness about the Ochlockonee River and its many challenges, Tall Timbers and our conservation partners The Georgia Conservancy and The Conservation Fund, produced a publication appropriately entitled, Ochlockonee River. In this beautiful publication, nationally respected environmental writer Richard Lenz highlights the river’s rich history, critical natural resources, threats to the river, and the need for conservation in the watershed, through stunning photography and his rich narrative. In 2007, these same organizations once again worked with Richard Lenz to produce a similar publication for the beautiful Aucilla River.

Advocacy

Finally, when necessary, we have rolled up our sleeves and taken advocacy positions on tough issues that have threatened the ecological integrity of the Red Hills. Tall Timbers has joined Red Hills landowners in successfully opposing a number of projects and initiatives including petroleum pipelines, landfills, the Red Hills Coastal Parkway, sprawling urban development, interstate transmission lines, wastewater spray fields, and the like, which would have been detrimental to the Region.

For additional information regarding planning issues in the Red Hills Region, contact Red Hills Planning Coordinator Neil Fleckenstein. To view copies of the TTLC Planning Bulletin, a periodic update of major planning issues in the Red Hills Region, click here.