Cardinal Easements
What is an easement?
Conservation easements protect agricultural, natural, scenic and historic assets. Landowners, working with Cardinal, agree to protect their land by restricting development rights. They maintain ownership, and can sell or transfer their property in the future as they please. Conservation easements can be donated to Cardinal for tax benefit, or Cardinal can purchase them. Cardinal holds easements across our seven-county service area in SW Ohio, protecting over 8,400 acres of farmland, forests, and fields.
Cardinal holds 55 easements, some highlighted below.
Easement Spotlights
Here are some stories of the farms protected by Cardinal with conservation easements. To learn more about our easement process, please check out our land owner resource hub!
Kim and Richard Hiatt, 76 acres in Highland County
Kim and Richard Hiatt, 76 acres in Highland County
“It is easy to understand why you should do it. It isn’t necessarily easy to get through the paperwork, but, I had help. In this small community, I didn’t want to see more farmland be lost to subdivision.” -Kim Hiatt
Alta and Jim Beasley, 142 acres in Brown County
Alta and Jim Beasley, 142 acres in Brown County
“My family were good stewards of the land…many of our meals were farm to table, before farm to table was cool. It was just a way of life for my family"
-Alta Beasley
Ursulines of Brown County, 85 acres in Brown County
Ursulines of Brown County, 85 acres in Brown County
“And if, according to times and circumstances, the need arises to make new rules or do something different, do it prudently and with good advice.”
-St. Angela
Farmland preservation is a “tribute to families who are farmers [and] to the rural people who have loved and supported us”, says Sister Christine Pratt of the Ursulines of Brown County. The sisters donated an easement in 2010. Formerly the St. Ursula Literary Institute, they established a school for young ladies in St. Martin in 1845. This school was built on a large farm, with woods running through it. They rented the farmland to local farmers.
In the late eighties, the sisters began looking to the future. Their group was diminishing in number, and aging; they no longer operated the school on grounds. “We started to ask ‘what is our relationship to the land’ and ‘what does that call us to’”, says Sr. Pratt. When this decision was put to them, they did not take the responsibility lightly. They established a committee to consider their options. After over twenty years of research, prayer, and discussion with members of the community, the sisters decided to pursue a conservation easement.
In 2017, the St Ursula farm was sold at auction to a member of the community who was known to the sisters. He was the steward the sisters had hoped to pass the land on to: an intentional farmer, and a family man, who hopes to pass the land on to his grandchildren. Of the easement transfer process, Sr. Pratt advises that easement holders “trust in God and [your] sense of commitment to the land.”
