Municipal Options for Financing Open Space Protection

Many municipalities are interested in protecting forests, farms, streams, and other open spaces that are important to their residents. Open space planning is an important step for a community to identify priorities and assess a range of potential policies to achieve conservation goals. Evaluating financing options to protect priority lands and waters is a next step to establish a municipal land protection fund. In the Hudson Valley, communities are using bonds, community preservation funds, general appropriations, and tax incentive programs to protect open space.

In this interactive forum offered by the Hudson River Estuary Program, local leaders from New Paltz, Red Hook, and Bethlehem will share case studies on developing and implementing local open space finance policies in their towns. Speakers will share experiences with building community support, lessons learned, and how funds have been used to achieve conservation of local priorities. Presentations will be followed by facilitated discussions.

This program presents an opportunity for dialogue with town supervisors to learn from their experiences with established local conservation programs.

NOTE: This event is HYBRID. Please indicate in the registration form whether you will attend in person or virtually via Webex. The hybrid portion of the program will last approximately 2 hours.