Wintergreen preserves 1,400 acres

More than 1,400 acres surrounding Crawford Knob in Nelson County will be preserved as wilderness after Wintergreen Resort officials donated the property to the nonprofit Wintergreen Nature Foundation.

The knob, which towers more than 3,000 feet above sea level, will be preserved through the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, officials said.

The knob joins another 4,500 acres of undeveloped and protected land in the nature foundation’s holdings, Wintergreen officials said.

Wintergreen will receive more than $3 million in tax credits from the state for preserving the land through a conservation easement, officials said. The deal has been several years in the making.

“Protecting this parcel contributes to the goal of Gov. Timothy Kaine to preserve 400,000 acres in the commonwealth by 2010,” Doug Coleman, executive director of the Wintergreen Nature Foundation, said in a statement. “The efforts of the state of Virginia and the Wintergreen Nature Foun-dation have been paramount to this project.”

Wintergreen Resort covers about 11,000 acres. The Crawford Knob preservation puts more than half of the resort’s property into a conservation easement.

“It’s a good deal for everyone,” said Dana Quillen, Wintergreen spokeswoman. “Wintergreen recognizes the beauty of the area and its location in the Blue Ridge Mountains and closeness to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Keeping property in conservation attracts people who enjoy the beauty of undeveloped property, saves habitats and adds to the uniqueness of the resort.”

Developers purchased Wintergreen’s 11,000-acre site in 1971. With the formation of Wintergreen Partners in 1984, Wintergreen Resort was developed. Officials said the resort and the nature foundation were once part of the same organization, but the foundation became a separate, tax-exempt agency that focuses on education and conservation.

As economic times have toughened, more developers are seeking tax credits in exchange for conservation easements, said Rex Linville, land conservation officer for the Piedmont Environmental Council. More than 76,000 acres in Albemarle County are now protected by easements, he said.

“The tax credits are helping protect a lot of land,” he said. “In this economy, a lot of developers are looking at how long it could take to build a property and are willing to consider an easement and a tax credit as part of the package.”

That was not the case with Wintergreen, Linville said. Wintergreen officials had been negotiating the 1,442-acre easement for several years, long before the economy entered a recession in December 2007 and tanked in September 2008.

“They started on this long before the economic downturn,” he said. “That property has some very sensitive wildlife habitats and features that make it very important to conserve.”