How can you make a difference in your community?

By donating a Historic Preservation Easement to the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County, you ensure that your historic building will be permanently preserved and possibly achieve significant tax benefits. In addition, your donation of an easement to the Trust may prompt others to do the same thereby helping your neighborhood retain its period character, become more attractive and more often than not improve property values.

What is a historic preservation easement?

It is a voluntary legal agreement that protects a significant historic, archaeological or cultural resource from inappropriate alteration or destruction. It provides assurance of protection through subsequent owners who will be subject to the restrictions contained in the easement. The easement is recorded with the deed and runs in perpetuity. The Trust assumes responsibility for monitoring the property to assure compliance.

As a property owner, you own a bundle of rights to your property. The full bundle includes all the rights allowed under the law such as mineral rights, oil and has rights and the right to develop according to local zoning. You can give away or sell one or more of these property rights to someone else while you retain all the others.

A historic preservation easement enables you to protect a historic building or site from the loss of its historic character by permanently preventing demolition, neglect or insensitive exterior alterations. Also, you can choose to include important interior features in the easement.

A conservation easement guarantees permanent protection of open space and landscaped ground while leaving them in your private ownership. With both conservation and preservation easements, you can continue to live on your property, receive all income from it, sell it or pass it on to your heirs while ensuring that it is never developed.

Are other protections available?

Easements offer the only permanent protection for historic properties. Even listing on the National Register of Historic Places does not offer protections against inappropriate alterations or demolition. Also, local municipalities may ( and often do) change zoning to allow changes to historic properties or choose to overrule recommendations by local historic commissions or existing preservation ordinances. Easements offer protections not available by any other means. While eminent domain is the only governmental tool that may “trump” an easement its use is very restricted and difficult to prove worthy enough to invoke against an existing easement.

Our goals at the Trust are:

Accept easements on properties that are restored to ensure their current and future preservation. Accept easements that will facilitate the preservation of important properties.

Our most important concern is that the properties be preserved and that whatever work is necessary to return the eased facade to its historic appearance be completed.

Who can benefit?

• You can... if you own a historic building and want to save on taxes.
• You can... if you are developer of an investment tax credit project. Tax advantages from the easement may significantly increase your investment now or provide additional tax benefits after the five year "recapture" period.
• You can... if you want to preserve a historic property that has been in the family for generations.
• You can...if you wish to preserve the results of your work to restore a historic structure
• You can... if you are a condominum owner of a historic building, a developer of projects that also preserves open space or the owner of small historic buildings used for professional offices, shops or apartments.

Are all easements alike?

An easement is a flexible tool that you can tailor to fit your special financial and personal needs and preserve your property's unique cultural and natural assets. An easement's adaptability gives you additional advantages for financial and estate planning.

What are the tax benefits?

Easements can qualify as a charitable contribution, which you can deduct for federal income, estate and gift tax purposes. To qualify, the IRS code requires that and easement be donated in perpetuity. The value of the easement donation is determined by an independent appraiser.

In addition, you may receive local property tax reductions and be able to exclude 40 percent of the value of the land resulting from the donation of a conservation easement from your taxable estate. For advice, always check with a real estate tax attorney, a financial planner or your accountant.

Typically, property owners donate easements to registered nonprofit organizations such as the Trust. The Trust asks easement donors for reimbursement of its costs to review and accept the easement and a contribution to the easement monitoring endowment for review and enforcement.

Consider using the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County

The Trust is a qualified 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization that has the experience and resources to assist you and your advisors in placing a historic preservation easement. If you are also considering a conservation easement, we would work with the Lancaster County conservancy and Lancaster Farmland Trust to assist you. We currently hold preservation easements on a number of properties throughout Lancaster County and have worked with the conservancy to accept preservation and conservation easements.

The Process

1. The Trust will handle most of the work involved in creating and recording an easement. Specifically, our fee includes the following:
2. Site visit and consultation with property owner to discuss what they wish to protect and the rights and the rights and obligations associated with the easement.
3. Drafting of the easement document by our experienced attorney and baseline specifications by HPT staff(the photographic journal and detailed description of the property)
4. Review of the easement with the property owner and their attorney (if so desired)
5. Recording of the easement at the county court house
6. Placement of easement in our annual monitoring program (includes annual site visits and reports to the property owner)
7. Enforcement of easement tenets (if necessary)
8. Note: Property owner's attorney fees and appraisals are the responsibility of the easement donor

After the recording of the easement

Trust staff and our professional advisors are available to review questions concerning your easement.

How to begin?

Call the Historic Preservation Trust at 717-291-5861 to discuss your situation and let us help you assess if your property would be a good candidate for an easement. Current Easements Held by Trust

• 22 West Main St., Strasburg Borough
• 44 North Lime Street, Lancaster City
• 231 North Shippen Place, Lancaster City
• 357 East Chestnut Street, Lancaster City
• Bausman Farmstead, 1630 Millersville Pike, Manor Township
• Bowmansville Roller Mill, Reading Road and Vonneida St., Brecknock Township
• Bowmansville Roller Mill Worker's House, 1145 Reading Rd., Brecknock Township
• Christian Street Court, 39-41, 47-49 N. Queen St., 43, 48-50 N. Christian St., Lancaster City
• Conestoga View “Old Almshouse” Hospital, 900 East King Street, Lancaster Township
• Ehrisman-Behrens House, 229 W. Chestnut St., Lancaster City
• Excelsior Hall, 125-131 E. King St., Lancaster City
• Franciscus-Carpenter House, 1744 Pioneer Rd., West Lampeter Township
• Hopeland Farm, 253 Elser Hill Road, Elizabeth Township
• Oberholtzer Farmstead, 2896 Graystone Rd., East Petersburg Borough
• Place Marie, 12-16 W. Orange St. & 52 N. Queen St., Lancaster City
• Schantz Farm, RD 1, Ephrata Township
• Sehner-Ellicott-von Hess House, 123 N. Prince St., Lancaster City
• South Duke Street Façade Covenants, 434, 526, 532, 564 S. Duke St., Lancaster City
• Spring Hollow Farm, 121 Mt. Pleasant Road, Paradise Township
• Stevens & Smith Historic Site 45-47 & 49 South Queen Street, 21-23 East Vine Street, Lancaster City
• Charles-Strubel House, 15 West Main St., Strasburg Borough
• Waidley-Trout House, 127 E. Main St., Strasburg Borough
• White Chimneys, 5117 Lincoln Highway, Gap, Salisbury Township