The Town of Tamworth owns several properties that were donated to Town for conservation purposes.  The Conservation Commission stewards these lands and maintains trails on some of them. 

The Conservation Commission also works with landowners who want to conserve their land, as long the property meets the Commission's priorities: 1) protecting the shores of ponds and streams, 2) conserving agricultural land and/or 2) enhancing connectivity for wildlife between the Sandwich Range & the Ossipee Mountains. 

Much of this work is in cooperation with other organizations, including...
Chocorua Lake Conservancy
The Society for Protection of NH Forests
Lakes Region Conservation Trust
Green Mountain Conservation Group

What is Conservation Land?

As the name implies, conservation land is land that is intended to be kept in a natural or near-natural state. Development of the property is either entirely prohibited or restricted to improvements necessary for certain allowed activities. These activities are most commonly agriculture, forestry and recreation. A property can become conservation land by either of two methods:

Fee-simple ownership. These properties are owned outright by either land trust organizations or government agencies whose missions include the protection of natural resources. For example, the US Forest Service, NH Fish and Game, NH Division of Forests and Lands, and NH Division of Parks and Recreation all own property in Tamworth that is considered to be conservation land. Private land trusts that own land in Tamworth include the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Lakes Region Conservation Trust and Chocorua Lake Conservancy, among others.

Conservation Easement. In order to grasp what a conservation easement is, it helps to understand that land ownership consists as a bundle of separate rights. For example, a landowner could sell the mineral rights to a petroleum company while still keeping the property to use as a residence or business. Likewise, the landowner could grant a right-of-way across the property for use as a road or utility line. In a conservation easement, the landowner is relinquishing certain rights of development and granting them to a land trust. In return, the land trust agrees to not exercise the rights and to monitor and defend the property against anyone who would assume to exercise the relinquished rights. This is a legally binding contract and extends to perpetuity.

For more information on conservation easements, visit these pages:
Land Trust Alliance
The Nature Conservancy

Conservation Land in Tamworth

These three pages outline how the Conservation Commission is involved in land conservation:

The Legacy: early land protection efforts
Local Support: land conservation in town planning
Where We Are Now: results of past efforts and where we are headed.

How Much does this Cost the Town?

Nothing. In fact, conservation land subsidizes the town residents. Every municipal cost of services study done in NH has shown that taxes collected from conservation land are greater than the cost of services rendered to the properties. Conservation land is assessed at the same rate as other property, yet it doesn't add to local school enrollment, emergency services, or most other town expenses. In addition, conservation land helps keep the landscape in a condition attractive to tourism, vacation home owners, hunters and fishermen, as well as contributing to a healthy forest industry. A recent study showed that employment rates rise after land is conserved. In total, conservation land more than pays for itself and attracts additional monetary benefits.

How does all this Affect the Future Development of Tamworth?

Without a professional build-out analysis, which the town has not yet done, it is difficult if not impossible to estimate what the town could or would look like down the road. In lieu of a build-out analysis, we used the tax maps and NH-GRANIT GIS layers to estimate the amount of land currently developed and the amount of suitable land available for development. The estimates are 6000 acres and 13,380 acres, respectively. If the town continues to develop in the manner it has been, including maintaining existing proportions of single family residences, apartment buildings, vacation homes, businesses and municipal services, as well as maintaining the same average occupants/household, the town's population could easily triple. At 10% growth per decade, which is around the current rate, it would take 130 years to fill the town. Studies indicate that the rate of new construction is not affected by adding more conservation land.

However, demographic trends are always subject to change, so any estimate may need revision twenty years down the road. And because the creation of conservation land is mainly up to the landowner, it is the most difficult factor to predict. However, it's a virtual certainty that more properties in Tamworth will become conservation land. All the Town can do is decide whether or not to continue to participate by identifying candidate properties that are consistent with the goals of the Town Master Plan.

Easement monitoring is a critical responsibility of the Conservation Commission.
Conservation Easement Process gives a brief explanation of how TCC acquires an easement.

For more information: info@tamworthconservationcommission.org.