Rhode Island § 34-39-3 - Conservation and Preservation Restrictions on Real Property

§ 34-39-3. Restrictions enforceable.

(a) No conservation restriction held by any governmental body or by a charitable corporation, association, trust, or other entity whose purposes include conservation of land or water areas or of a particular area, and no preservation restriction held by any governmental body or by a charitable corporation, association, trust, or other entity whose purposes include preservation of structures or sites of historical significance or of a particular structure or site, shall be unenforceable against any owner of the restricted land or structure on account of lack of privity of estate or contract, or lack of benefit to particular land, or on account of the benefit being assignable or being assigned to any other governmental body or to any entity with like purposes, or on account of any other doctrine of property law that might cause the termination of the restriction such as, but not limited to, the doctrine of merger and tax delinquency. Conservation or preservation restrictions shall be liberally interpreted in favor of the grants awarded to effect the purposes of those easements and the policies and purpose of this chapter.

(b) This section shall not be construed to imply that any restriction easement, covenant, or condition that is not covered hereunder shall, on account of any provisions hereof, be unenforceable.

(c) The restrictions shall not be subject to the thirty-year limitation on restrictive covenants provided in § 34-4-21.

(d) The attorney general, pursuant to the attorney general’s inherent authority, may bring an action in the superior court to enforce the public interest in such restrictions.

(e) The court in any judicial proceeding, or the decision maker in any arbitration or other alternative dispute resolution proceeding, in addition to any other relief ordered, may award the prevailing party reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the action or proceeding.

(f) A court action affecting a conservation restriction held by a private land trust, as defined in § 42-17.1-2(28)(ii), may only be brought or intervened in by:

(1) An owner of a property interest in the real property burdened by the conservation restriction;

(2) A holder of the conservation restriction;

(3) A person having a third-party right of enforcement stated in the recorded conservation restriction; or

(4) The attorney general as provided in subsection (d) of this section.