Photo © Adriel Heisey

One of the big questions people have about National Heritage Areas is, "Do they affect private property rights or public land use?" The answer is No.

In 2004, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) published results of a year-long study of National Heritage Areas that included consultations with six private property rights advocacy groups. The study found that "...heritage area officials, Park Service headquarters and regional staff, and representatives of national property rights groups who we contacted were unable to provide us with any examples of a heritage area directly affecting - positively or negatively - private property use" (pg. 4). (Full Report)

Designation does not involve additional Federal regulation. Landowners concerned about whether a designation will affect them should know that National Heritage Areas celebrate "working landscapes" and traditional land uses. Existing Areas, such as Silos & Smokestacks, Augusta Canal, MotorCities, Rivers of Steel, and National Coal all focus on a major land-use industry in their respective regions. How people use the landscape shapes the culture, lifestyle, and values of its inhabitants. This is the essence of a National Heritage Area. In Arizona, working ranches, for example, often represent many generations of land management knowledge. National Heritage Areas recognize that expertise and the fact that continued grazing protects open spaces.

National Heritage Areas recognize the importance of private lands, and that property owners are the primary planners of land use. National Heritage Areas provide funding and other resources, not regulations and red tape, to help communities and private landowners achieve their own stewardship goals.

• House Resolution 280 (passed in 2003) declared that the establishment of a Heritage Area is not to be construed as providing new regulatory authority on land use within the NHA or its viewshed.
• Testifying before Congress, Mark Reimers, Deputy Chief of Programs and Legislation for the Forest Service, stated that a proposed National Heritage Area would have "no direct effect on the management of the National Forest System but simply provides a new format for continued public and governmental coordination within the Heritage Area."
• National Heritage Areas are not parks, and are under no federal regulatory authority.
• No zoning changes or changes in property taxes result from designation.
• Private property owners located within the boundaries of a National Heritage Area are not required to participate in it or be associated with it, nor are they required to permit public or government access to their lands.
• Each National Heritage Area creates its own designation legislation and management plan. By choice, most have specifically precluded the ability to acquire property. Even for those Areas that are allowed to own property, most have never exercised that option.
• Any conservation of resources on private lands is voluntary.
• Property owners within National Heritage Areas are not restricted from tearing down old buildings on their properties, from selling or subdividing their properties, or from developing their properties.
• The function of a National Heritage Area is to provide funding and other assistance to communities, groups, and landowners to help them achieve their own goals of resource preservation, promotion, and interpretation on a voluntary basis.
• National Heritage Areas do not affect the permit system (for grazing, logging, etc.) on existing public lands and do not add any regulations of these activities on any land.