Revised Dec 15 2020
The starting point for analyzing the Park Hill Golf Course (“PHGC”) land conservation easement is the Colorado Conservation Easement Statute, C.R.S. §38-30.5-101 et seq. The conservation easement states explicitly that it was created pursuant to this Colorado statute. Although Clayton Early Learning and its attorney Bruce James, during Clayton’s ownership of the land, and now Westside Investment Partners, Inc. have always wanted to try to diminish the legal effect of the conservation easement by calling it a “use agreement,” it is in fact a conservation easement created under and governed by this Colorado statute.
In relevant part, the statute defines a conservation easement as follows:
a right in the owner of the easement to prohibit or require a limitation upon…a land area…appropriate to the retaining or maintaining of such land…predominantly in a natural, scenic or open condition, or for wildlife habitat…or recreational…or other use or condition consistent with the protection of open land, environmental quality or life-sustaining ecological diversity…. C.R.S. §38-30.5-101.