Morgan County landowners finalize conservation easement on 5,000-acre parcel
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- A photo of the 5,048-acre parcel of Morgan County land to be preserved after the land owner, the John Schlichte family, decided to give up development rights on the property. The land is used for farming and is home to the Warrior Rizen Ranch, which serves former military members and their families.
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- A map of the 5,048-acre parcel of Morgan County land to be preserved after the land owner, the John Schlichte family, decided to give up development rights on the property. The land is used for farming and is home to the Warrior Rizen Ranch, which serves former military members and their families.
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- A photo of the 5,048-acre parcel of Morgan County land to be preserved after the land owner, the John Schlichte family, decided to give up development rights on the property. The land is used for farming and is home to the Warrior Rizen Ranch, which serves former military members and their families.
MORGAN — Go-go development isn’t the mantra everywhere in Utah.
The owners of an expanse of more than 5,000 acres south of Morgan in Morgan County will forego development on the property — largely undeveloped, though part is used for agriculture — in the name of conservation.
“The landowner was incredibly generous and donated the easement,” said Cheryl Fox, executive director of the Park City-based Summit Land Conservancy.
That is, the owners, members of the Schlichte family in Morgan County, went through the legal process of giving up their development rights on the vast 5,048-acre piece of property, facilitated by Summit, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving open spaces. Summit also aided in securing a conservation easement last year on the 1,050-acre Ogden Valley parcel that used to house a Trappist monastery, but the Morgan County property is the largest the group has helped preserve.
The change means the Morgan County land — used for farming and home to a nonprofit organization the Schlichtes run that aids service members — will remain largely pristine in perpetuity, no matter the development pressures that extend from the Wasatch Front to the Wasatch Back, where the parcel sits. The Schlichtes, still the land owners, will keep farming it and using it for Warrior Rizen Foundation operations.
The shift is notable, not in the least because of the potential financial windfall the Schlichte family foregoes. By giving up development rights, they give up the ability to build homes, subdivisions and other commercial development on the land or sell it for those purposes.
“The development rights are worth a lot of money,” Fox said. “There’s so much pressure on landowners to do that, to sell to developers.”
Significantly, the decision of the Schlichtes — John and Barbara Schlichte and their five sons — also means a large swath of land will remain green space, a win in the push for conservation. The land sits off state Route 66 near the Porterville area.
“People need green space and watersheds,” Fox said. She alluded to the urban development that has factored in the reduction of the amount of water in the Great Salt Lake to record-low levels, saying “that sprawl is not the right choice.”
Wide-open land, she went on, can host wildlife and results in better water management. “That’s a benefit to all of us in Northern Utah, even without being able to put muddy boots on the property,” she said.
In a statement, John Schlitche noted the importance of the vast piece of land to the Warrior Rizen Ranch and its mission of serving military veterans and their families. The easement paperwork was finalized last December.
“When you stand back and look at the beauty and richness of the land, you begin to understand its potential impact on your family and its potential impact with the veteran community,” he said. “The easement perpetuates this land to those who have given our country the freedoms that we enjoy today with a promise that the ranch will be here for them in the future.”
Fox noted the military and law enforcement roots of the Schlichtes. “They’ve already served our country in a different way and here they are again,” she said.
The owners of the Ogden Valley property that was preserved with the help of Summit received $9.1 million as part of the arrangement, though the land could have fetched perhaps $26 million to $29 million from private developers. Much of that came from a federal agricultural easement program.
The Schlichtes didn’t seek financial reimbursement as part of the arrangement with their land.