LandChoices: Opportunities for Landowners to Preserve Their Land

Land Choices: Changing Development in America

Why donate to LandChoices?
Testimonials

Kirt Manecke is a man with a mission, working to convince people there are alternatives to boxy, cookie-cutter subdivisions. In these days of green car initiatives and green housing ambitions, Manecke asks, "What about green neighborhoods?"

"When they build these green homes, they clear-cut the land, destroy all the wildlife," Manecke said. "All
the water runs off those fertilized lawns and pollutes our lakes and streams. There's not much green about
a green home other than it's a little more efficient."
The Detroit News

"I have a marketing degree and as a businesswoman I realize that to save land I have to invest in ways to provide landowners with information to conserve their land. I have watched my own family deal with a family farm and none of my family members knew what to do with this land beyond selling it for a cookie cutter subdivision.

In addition, my husband''s family were totally unaware about conservation planning for their family cabin on 40-acres up north. LandChoices provided the information on land conservation choices to me and it gave our families some positive and economically viable options. I look at a contribution to LandChoices as an investment in the future for a better quality of life.

LandChoices' efficient media strategy of delivering critical land protection information to targeted landowners and communities inspired me to invest and become a member. Their public relations work and one on one landowner assistance is reaching thousands of landowners who otherwise would have no idea choices even exist. LandChoices' work is just as essential as a land conservancy. We need both."
LandChoices' member Gale Schmenk, Saline, MI

"We call our small group Mariposa and we are interested in preserving a 13 acre field in central PA that has a large growth of milkweed. The number of Monarch butterflies that are raised and then migrate to Mexico each year is undoubtedly in the thousands. But now the field is for sale and is very likely to go the way of so much farmland around here.....developement...I'm so grateful for someone with your expertise...And again my thanks!"
Kathy Stewart, PA

"I am a financial contributor as I believe deeply in LandChoices' work. Reaching out to landowners and harnessing the power of the media to promote land preservation alternatives is critically important to the American landscape.

As a father, I don't want to see out-of-control development take over the mountains that I love. I want my daughter to have the same opportunities as I. LandChoices offers creative solutions that are a win-win for all involved, including the landowner and developer."
LandChoices' member Peter Wottowa, Denver, CO

"85% of the landowners in our country are seeking full equity out of their land and NEED to know about conservation subdivision design as an option, otherwise their land will destroyed by conventional subdivision development. LandChoices is one of the only groups working to promote conservation subdivisions."
Edward McMahon, LandChoices' member and a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute, in a conversation with LandChoices' founder Kirt Manecke

"Landchoices' agenda is spreading the word that conservation design is possible for the small landowner, the big developer, and those in between. This is a crucial mission since once land is stripped and built on in destructive ways, it is lost forever. As Conservation Design advocates at Tryon Farm we are grateful that LandChoices is getting the word out to people who will make the difference in how we live and assume stewardship of our land."
Ed and Eve Noonan, LandChoices' members and sponsors, and developers of Tryon Farm, a conservation community in Michigan City, IN.

"LandChoices is the first -- and so far only -- group to take this highly effective land-use approach (conservation subdivisions) countrywide, with a national campaign to inform the public and offer it to help communities preserve their special places: working family farmlands, forests, lakeshores and natural lands.
Moreover, this technique does so at no cost, and is a clear win-win for the landowner, developer, community, wildlife, etc."
Randall Arendt, LandChoices' member. Considered the nation's leading authority on conservation design.

"Our most breathtaking land and waters deserve to be protected. LandChoices provides the mechanism to start the protection process in motion. It's important for citizens to actively plan for and pursue "green space" throughout their communities and neighborhoods; afterall, what would New York City be without Central Park?"
LandChoices' member Kim Walter, Crested Butte, CO

"LandChoices is lighting the way to preserving the community resources we all love. Their simple mutually beneficial approach just makes sense. Help stop the clear cut grid style development we hate by donating to LandChoices today!"
LandChoices' member Scott Pohl, Waterford, Michigan

"In the wake of growth pressure spurred by construction of a new high school and extension of a sewer line, I was looking for better development options. LandChoices provided a better option – conservation design for subdivisions. These concepts helped to formulate the basis of my campaign for town council and continue to influence the direction the town is turning as it looks for better models for future development.

I'm so grateful to Land Choices for highlighting the need to preserve land and for presenting development options that create winning outcomes for everyone in the community."
Annette Allen, LandChoices' member, Councilmember, Signal Mountain Town Council, Signal Mountain, TN

"I feel helpless as I watch the woods in my region cleared for subdivisions. The pile of once beautiful trees in the center of the graded and cleared land, waiting to be burned, is so opposite to conservation subdivision methods where land and trees are treated like gold for their conservation and return on investment value.

I don't believe that local promulgation and enforcement of woodland ordinances is necessarily the best answer, rather educating developers and planners that, through conservation design, there is a better way to develop that maintains the original beauty and environmental benefits of the area while simultaneously increasing the overall profitability of the development. LandChoices is working to create the change so badly needed in development methods."
LandChoices' member Steve Manz, West Bloomfield, MI

"Anti Sprawl LandChoices founder Kirt Manecke is setting a conservation landmark in his quest to save thousands of acres of Boy Scout owned open space from pavement...It is a cause all conservationists should enlist in."
The North Woods Call, "The NEWSpaper for people who love the North"

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