Opinion ID: 4533768
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: View from the Rivers

Text: The record establishes without dispute that members of the public can and do canoe and kayak on the Savannah River alongside the easement and on the Little River as it runs through the easement. The view from the rivers includes the easement’s natural areas as well as the golf course. The record includes a video illustrating the stark difference in the views of the easement property, on the one hand, and the property farther down the Savannah River, on the other. The downriver property includes considerable development—development that few canoers or kayakers would find scenic. 17 Case: 18-14817 Date Filed: 05/13/2020 Page: 18 of 22 One could perhaps debate whether a golf course provides scenic enjoyment. But the natural areas covered by this easement surely do. And the golf course, whose most prominent feature visible from a canoe or kayak on the river is the trees, detracts only a little, if at all. When compared to a condominium building or even private homes, the easement property qualifies as open space providing scenic enjoyment. And preserving relatively natural views along these two rivers— views free of development on the other side as well because of the national forest—serves a public interest. In asserting the contrary, the Commissioner says the rivers’ banks are from three to ten feet high, as if this somehow eliminates the opportunity for scenic enjoyment. The Tax Court took the same approach. But trees, on the one hand, and condos or other buildings, on the other hand, can be seen from a canoe or kayak, even when a river’s banks are ten feet high. Indeed, if a ten-foot bank obscures anything, it is the fairways and greens and other non-natural features of a golf course, not the trees. From a kayak on a river with a ten-foot bank, the flat parts of a golf course look just like open land. The notion that the banks somehow prevent scenic enjoyment is a makeweight. Were it not for the presence of a golf course on part of this property, the assertion that preserving open space alongside rivers with three- to ten-foot banks 18 Case: 18-14817 Date Filed: 05/13/2020 Page: 19 of 22 cannot be “for the scenic enjoyment of the general public” and provide a public benefit would be a nonstarter.