Candace Schafer is a bit like Scarlett O”™Hara. No, not that she”™s a scheming prima donna. The yoga buff couldn”™t be nicer in her phone interview. But rather that like Scarlett, land seems to be her destiny.
A former senior vice president for Marcus Partners ”“ where she was responsible for the full-cycle development of real estate projects in Connecticut ”“ the Norwalk, Conn., resident has also worked for the Tarragon Development Corp., the Urban Land Institute and two Chicago architectural firms. The multilingual Schafer is a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club who enjoys hiking as much as sedentary pursuits, such as reading and piano.
So it should come as no surprise that Schafer has become the new executive director of the Westchester Land Trust in Bedford Hills, which has protected almost 7,000 acres of open space in the county.
Schafer”™s background, she says, “does allow me to speak all the languages of land, from the donor”™s perspective to the municipality”™s perspective.”
The trust conserves open space in part by working with private landowners to create conservation easements and preserves. A conservation easement is a legal agreement that allows an individual to protect a piece of private property with environmental value from future development. Though the trust oversees the easement, which exists in perpetuity, the property remains under the control of the owner, who gets a tax benefit.
Or a landowner can donate land to the trust for the purpose of setting up a preserve.
The trust also works with municipalities to facilitate the purchase of land for open space, as when it helped Yorktown negotiate the sale of a parcel to the town that is now the 200-acre preserve Granite Knolls.
The trust has teamed with Slow Food Westchester to connect 30 chefs with 10 Westchester and Putnam farms to spotlight local food and is part of the Bedford 2020 Land and Water Use Task Force to consider water quality, storm water management and sustainable water use.
“I think the message we have to protect private land is a good one,” Schafer says. “I also want to ensure our private/public partnerships to maintain community sustainability.”
