The Conservation Easement is a useful tool in land preservation. An Easement allows the current activity, which is often farming or ranching, to remain on the land in perpetuity. This provides an open space aspect and preservation of valuable riparian areas, historic places and traditional productive activity on the land.
Conservation Easement. |
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Current Activities
Community Outreach Along Our Rivers
Our Community Outreach Director may be coming your way. Since this program will
explore how to sustain the riparian and riverside habitat to maintain a healthy Verde River
environment and preserve the river flows, those who own property along the Verde and its feeder
creeks will be a part of that exploration. The grant is a partnership between VVLPI and Friends of
Verde River Greenway. The Director will engage landowners along the river to determine their
interest in the preservation and restoration of the habitat along the borders of their property. There
will also be an assistance program for those landowners who wish to participate and improve their land management practices. If your land borders the river and you would like a consultation on restoration and/or preservation, contact Steve Estes at 928-451-6993 or stevenrestes@gmail.com |
Overlay Project
VVLP has completed a grant program for the Overlay Model, a comprehensive mapping system of the Verde Valley which displays as overlays riparian areas, cultivated farms, wildlife corridors,
parks and monuments, federal, state and municipal land boundaries, trail systems, and more.
This Model graphically portrays the areas of highest preservation value for consideration in land use
planning. VVLP plans to present the Overlay Model to community groups, non-profit organizations and local governments.
In this image, municipal boundaries are in white, wildlife corridors (2004 study) are in purple, state lands are blue and AZ Preserve Initiative (API) eligible areas are in brown. The API encourages preservation of select parcels of state land. Usually those within 1-3 miles of municiple boundaries. |
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Open Space
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Since our mission is to develop immediate and long range strategies to preserve and enhance the natural open space of the Verde Valley, VVLP visualized an Open Space Plan with a map indicating the most valuable and appropriate land to set aside. One of the earliest projects undertaken and completed was to create an Existing Conditions Map. This base map took the individual open space plans of all the municipalities and county communities and located them on one map. It was put together by and with the cooperation of the planners from each of the municipalities under the sponsorship of the VVLP Planning Council. One of the main tenants of the plan was to preserve open space between the various established communities in the Verde Valley to retain the rural character we all enjoy. Yavapai County then developed a Verde Valley Regional Land Use Planning process and brought together a multi-faceted group with a consultant team. This group adopted the VVLP Open Space Map to be maintained in the Regional plan. The plan was adopted in 2007 and VVLP was assigned a leadership role in carrying out the open space recommendations. The Existing Open Space Conditions Map can also be found on p.20 of The Verde Valley Regional Land Use Plan.
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Regional Land Use Map
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Potential Priority
Open Space Parcels
VVLP was awarded a Yavapai Community foundation Grant to study more carefully where the
most valuable areas to preserve are and to map them. Parcels within the National Forest or adjacent to parks and
monuments are of high open space value. Other special factors such as wildlife habitat, significant archaeology,
agriculture and scenery are also considered when choosing parcels. |
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