RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST - RELIANT LAND TRUST..
.. simultaneously doing business as 'RADIUS Management and RADIUS Land'..
Is NOT A 'LAND TRUST' but is a FOR PROFIT Investment group.
They've chosen to use 'LAND TRUST' in their new (established 3/11/09) business and that term COULD RESULT IN disarming THE WELL-INTENTIONED LANDOWNER.
WOULD YOU WISH YOUR FAMILY, YOUR PARENTS OR GRANDPARENTS TO BE COURTED BY THIS 11-state INVESTMENT GROUP?
A coalition of investors calling themselves "a small, family business" have created a new face for their older business (Radius Land), using the term of Land Trust in the title: RELIANT LAND TRUST. They claim to have been in business since 1997, but that's misleading (re: Reliant). It's Radius that has been in business that long.
RELIANT also claims ".. we simply buy raw and and hold it long-term" but unlike a bonified Land Trust where "long-term" means FOREVER, RELIANT's use of long-term is quite different.
RELIANT isn't a land trust at all. A bonified LAND TRUST is a non-profit entity that oversees CONSERVATION of land. RELIANT is a FOR profit operation based in Oregon, and their motivations are HARDLY to restrict development rights. Their objective is to buy land speculatively, as an investment. Buy low, sell high. This is NOT STEWARDSHIP. And using the term "LAND TRUST" is very misleading.
A not-for-profit Land Trust example: An individual landowner contacts a LAND TRUST to place development restrictions on a parcel, 'to spare breaking up the land and to restrict future development rights'. Those restriction are placed on the title holder's deed, and then monitored in perpetuity by the Land Trust to enforce compliance. In the future should a development permit or subdivision be applied-for at the local level, the application would trigger a title search, and those deed restrictions would prevent the activity. The not-for-profit Land Trust has the legal authority to see that the original land use intentions, that sacred TRUST is honored.
A not-for-profit Land Trust is a conservation custodian.
Please don't be mislead. RELIANT is NOT a LAND TRUST.
It's just a very useful choice of words in the FOR PROFIT business name.
RELIANT LAND TRUST USES PUBLIC RECORDS to get title holder names and addresses. This, EVEN THOUGH ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION REQUIRES THEY AGREE TO NOT ENGAGE IN COMMERCIAL USE. Reliant does so anyway, relying on the financially strained counties to not prosecute.
The landowner, perhaps an elder, perhaps with health issues, perhaps in financial despair, is contacted via post by a young person whose name is 'CHARITY'. The letterhead and logo look very pro-environment, but the mission is profit. And by use of faith-instilling terms like 'Reliant, land TRUST, and Charity', the corporation's ploy could disarm well-intentioned landowners.
Landowners targeted by Reliant receive a letter that suggests (a quote) Reliant will.. ".. OFFER YOU A FAST, TROUBLE-FREE SALE, AS WELL AS A FAIR PRICE AND IMMEDIATE CASH. OF COURSE, WE WILL PAY ALL OF THE FEES".
It's useful to have an employee named "Charity" sign the letters.
RELIANT is banking that these troubling economic times will find landowners PARTING WITH LARGER PARCELS. Timber prices are at historic lows, vast open space sits fallow, so the time is right to dangle a financial carrot.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS IN GROWTH MANAGEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE IS THE RATE at which RESOURCE LANDS ARE BEING CONVERTED INTO HIGHER DENSITY USE.
RELIANT WILL CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PROBLEM.
RELIANT WILL NOT BE CONSERVING THIS LAND. IT'S ALL ABOUT PROFIT.
Don't 'rely' on RELIANT to conserve your land from development.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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