Steve, This idea (or similar ideas) have been discussed on Gardenweb quite a few times. I personally have 25 acres that I dream about turning into a public arboretum. A number of other Gardenwebbers have properties or significant plant collections that they would ideally like to see sustained after they are gone. The major obstacle is money. For a group (university, gardening group/society, etc) to be interested enough in your property to consider keeping it going after you are gone, it has to be an extremely special place or be endowed with a large amount of money. From what I've seen, it is pretty tough. Each year a number of world-class properties get sold off when the owners die. Significant plant collections are often lost. Groups like the Garden Conservancy (probably the largest organization of its type) do what they can for really special places, but the funds and public interest are unfortunately far less than would be required to protect many potential treasures.

Dh advised me to wait and see what the other city says about granting our city access before I call the mayor back about "donating" money. The mayor "IS" a lawyer and the city council has a lawyer sitting on it, the water department has consulted both and come to the same conclusion we did.....we have no rights as long as they are traveling thru my property, not loitering or littering or destroying my property or harrassing us. I'd be willing to pay for improvements to this new access as long as I get a "new" and improved contract stating there is an easement on my property for buried pipes.....not for a driveable access. :0) Wish me luck! We really like this new mayor, who is a retired judge. Since he is new maybe he has the energy to pursue this. I don't think I should just donate money...but I'd be willing to have them send me bills as the access is being looked over by an engineer, or the guy who drives the bulldozer who's putting in the road needs paid. :0) Maybe I can set up an "access" account, funded by me?

Wow, thanks for all the responses. I am going to have to reread this over very slowly so that I understand everything you all said. To answer some of your questions and comments, it's not too much house for me Gardenspice because I am buying it for cash. Taxes are high in New Jersey. They are $6700. on this house now. I want to make sure I can continue paying the taxes on it when I get older so I don't want to do anything to it that's going to cost me more money in taxes. I understand that taxes go up anyway. But I want to keep them from going up as much as possible. The taxes are one reason I am looking into building an apartment in one of the outbuildings on the property. I'm thinking ahead for old age. I want to keep this house until I die. If I had a tenant, it would help with the taxes. Unless the tax cost of the improvement cancels out any profits I would make on rent. Of course I will look into all the rules and laws I have to follow if I was going to do something like this down the road and I'd never do it without getting proper permits, etc. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't follow the rules! I am also looking into other ways to make some money with this property. Making an apartment was one idea. I've also thought of having weddings and other events there. I'm a bit of an entrepreneur and will do a lot of research. Whatever we do, we will be doing all the work ourselves. As far as what's going on inside the house right now, there are open permits on it now that the code officer told us was transferrable to us so we can complete the work. Nothing is hooked up in this house. The work was in progress and then the owners had to stop. It will take us three weeks to hook it all up. There will be lots more work to do but in three weeks we'll have enough done that we will be able to get the certificate of occupancy to move in. Other than the tax man kind of rushing me off the phone, all the town guys we've spoken to about this property have been very helpful and supportive of us--they want us in there. The house has been empty for a while and I think they're afraid someone's going to buy it and turn it into some kind of halfway house type thing (it's a big old Victorian) and they would rather have a family in there who is going to give it tender loving care. It is in a town with other multiple dwelling buildings, bed & breakfasts, plus it's on five acres. I'm not even sure what I want to do with it and what I can do to it at this point. My goal is taking care of these taxes. Where I live now, on an 11 acre farm in Virginia, my taxes are only $846 a year so this is going to be sticker shock! And this whole thing might be moot if I don't get my farm sold. We lost our buyer two days before closing! Now we're praying the old Victorian is still going to be there when we get a new buyer!

it certainly does not hurt to try and get a review, especially if vales are lower than what your assessment has. until a couple of yrs ago alot of FL homeowners were getting reassessments but then our taxes were significantly cut. i used to pay 4X what I do now and for a few yrs in a row i had to pay the shortages, couple times it was thousands of $$. then they ended up w several thousand $$ extra and of course you can not access that $$ and you pay taxes on it. since taxes came down, my overages were rolled over and my payment went down. i refinanced in Jan just as values have been starting to trend back up, now my payment is 1/2 of what it was. we just voted in a mileage rate increase FINALLY so taxes go up a tiny bit. the county lost 1.5% in sales taxes in 2011 + loss of property taxes and every semester they close 5 more schools and lay off thousands more teachers. they desperately need the increase, we have A+ schools here and my property someday selling well depends on my cities school staying open which it may not (chopping block for 1 yr now). ~ liz