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New York Real Estate Law ReporterLandlord Tenant LawLand Use and PlanningFeatures

Enforcing Conservation Easements

By Leonard Benowich
June 30, 2025

In Peconic Land Trust, Inc. v Salvatore, 2025 NY Slip Op 03201 (2d Dept. May 28, 2025), the Second Department affirmed the Motion Court’s grant of summary judgment upholding the notice provisions in a conservation easement and held that the landowner’s failure to notify the land trust before they cut down trees that were protected by that conservation easement was a material violation of the easement. The Second Department affirmed Justice Pastoressa’s decision and held that the land trust was entitled to judgment “compelling the restoration of the [protected] property to the condition that existed prior to such violation.”

In 2002, the Salvatores conveyed a conservation easement on four acres of their land located in Hampton Bays to the Peconic Land Trust The Peconic Land Trust holds more than 145 conservation easements on more than 2,400 acres on the East End of Long Island. The Salvatores’ conservation easement prohibited development on the easement property, and it restricted the use of that property Among other things, the easement prohibited the Salvatores (and their successors) from cutting or removing trees from the easement property, with a limited exception: the grantors only had “the right to remove or restore trees, shrubs, or other vegetation when dead, diseased, decayed or damaged, as well to clear trees for agricultural purposes.”

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