Conservancy Purchases Development Rights

on Cheboygan County Farm

For the first time in its history, the Little Traverse Conservancy has exercised the conservation tool known as Purchase of Development Rights. Just this past March, Matthew and Susan Bonnett sold, at a highly discounted price, the development rights from 370 acres of their Munro Township farm (known as Clay Ridge Farm) to the Conservancy.

“We’re breaking new ground for our organization,” said Tom Bailey, the Conservancy’s executive director. “Farmland in this region is extremely valuable and we know that we need to take active measures to protect land with high ecological, farmland, or scenic value. Clay Ridge Farm has all three.”

The protected portion of Clay Ridge Farm includes about 1 ½ miles of Bonnett Road frontage and more than a quarter mile of Beavertail Creek frontage. The land is noted by the local Natural Resource Conservation Service as some of the best farmland in Cheboygan County. It includes active farmland, wetlands, and upland woods. Wildlife species that use the land for habitat include turkey, white-tailed deer, sandhill crane, coyote, badger, and several species of migratory waterfowl and songbirds.

What does this mean for Matthew and Susan Bonnett? It means they can continue making their living by doing what they love and know best: farming. But instead of dairy farming — which they have done all of their lives — the Bonnetts will now raise beef cattle and dairy replacement heifers, pursuits that will give them a little more free time.

“My parents and I have been farming forever and over the years we bought smaller adjacent farms to make our current 700-acre farm,” Matthew said. “There is too much farmland being lost to development and after all of these years of piecing this farm together, we wouldn’t want to sell it off bit by bit.”

“The Bonnetts exemplify what it means to be conservation-minded,” said Ty Ratliff, land protection specialist with the Conservancy. “If they weren’t willing to sell their development rights for less than half of their value, we could not have made the purchase. They were committed to making this a win-win situation for themselves and for long-term conservation.” Ratliff added that this type of project (purchase of development rights) also gives the non-farming public an opportunity to participate in farmland protection.

Both the Bonnetts and the Conservancy hope that the remaining development rights of the 700-acre Clay Ridge Farm will be purchased in the future. “Down the road, my goal is to try to find somebody, perhaps a university, who will purchase the entire piece and leave it intact,” Matthew said.

The Conservancy Board of Trustees views purchase of development rights as a tool which will be exercised when appropriate. “Currently, we do not have a large pot of dollars that we can use for this type of conservation,” Bailey cautioned. But the Conservancy is on the lookout for funds that can be earmarked solely for farmland conservation. It may take some time. “Currently, there is very little money available for the protection of farmland.”

The Conservancy hopes to generate community awareness about the loss of farmland and what it means to our region. “There are many parts of our service area where farmland is the essence of the region’s beauty…and way of life,” Bailey said. “It behooves us all to take just a moment to try to envision northern Michigan without that piece of its personality.”