Explore Land Protection Options for Your Property

If you are concerned about what will someday happen to your Door County Property and want to explore whether permanently protecting all or a portion of your property makes sense for you and your family, we invite you to download and read the informative booklet How to Protect your Door County Property- A guide to land protection strategies (545 kb)*.  This booklet explains in detail the options landowners have to protect the conservation and scenic values of the lands they love and influence what Door County will look like far into the future. 

If you would like to discuss whether your property meets our land protection criteria or falls within one of our priority areas and find out about the land protection options that may be available for you, please e-mail us at info@doorcountylandtrust.org or call Terrie Cooper, Land Program Director, at (920) 854-4700. 

Ways We Work with Landowners to Protect Land

The Door County Land Trust primarily relies on three methods in order to protect land:

• We enter into conservation easement agreements with private landowners. The landowners retain ownership of the land while the type and amount of future development is permanently restricted.
   
• We accept donations of land that possess high quality habitat or significant open space value.
   
• We identify and selectively purchase from willing landowners those properties in Door County that possess exceptional scenic beauty and ecological significance.

Types of Land We Protect

• Undeveloped natural areas including forests, shoreline, wetlands, and other high quality habitats that provide a home for Door County’s rare and unique plant and animal communities.
   
• Scenic vistas and open space that capture the essence and beauty of Door County.

Our Proactive Land Protection Approach

In order to help balance the impacts of inappropriate development and ensure the unique natural heritage of the Door Peninsula and its surrounding islands are not lost forever, the Door County Land Trust has worked cooperatively with natural resource experts and conservation partners to identify Door County's highest land protection priorities.

As a result of this planning process, the Land Trust has committed to playing a leading role in the protection of 25 Special Places throughout the Door Peninsula and on Washington, Detroit and Chambers Islands. These places rate highly in terms of ecological and scenic value and many of them are home to species found on the Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species lists.

While the majority of our efforts are aimed at protecting these identified Special Places, we also partner with landowners throughout the county to protect individual properties that have significant conservation and scenic value. All land protection projects the Door County Land Trust is involved with must meet the criteria for our Land Project Acceptance Policy. This policy is one way of ensuring that our limited resources are focused on the protection of our finest open spaces and wild places.

Learn more about Conservation Easement Agreements and Federal Tax Incentives for Easement Donors.

Visit About Us to find out more about the mission of the Door County Land Trust and how land protection benefits the community.  Or find out how to Support our Work.

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