Note: The department's appraisal guidelines are available from the DNR, Bureau of Community Financial Assistance.
Note: The department encourages a grantee considering applying for grant funding for fee simple or conservation easement acquisition to contact the department before ordering an appraisal. Instructions provided to the appraiser will impact the scope and quality of the appraisal and, therefore, impact the grant award amount.
Example: Presume an applicant applies to protect a lake with a fee simple land acquisition funded with a land acquisition grant. Presume the property has a value of $100,000 as determined by a department-approved appraisal. The Surface Water Grant Program requires a 25% grantee acquisition match, bringing the maximum grant award to $75,000, with $25,000 provided by the grantee. Presume further that the applicant will use a donated property as part of the grantee acquisition match. Presume the department-approved value of the donated property is $70,000 and that miscellaneous eligible acquisition costs (including closing costs, attorney's fees and appraisal costs) amount to $10,000. The maximum grant award for the proposed acquisition would be calculated as $135,000. However, the applicant cannot receive a grant that exceeds amount of actual cash outlay. In this example, the actual cash outlay is the subject property value plus the eligible acquisition costs, so the maximum grant award is capped at $110,000.
($100,000 + $10,000 + $70,000) x 75% = $135,000
Maximum grant award capped at $110,000
Wis. Admin. Code Department of Natural Resources NR 193.87