After Richard Teschner bought Resler Canyon for $2 million and gave it to Frontera Land Alliance to save the arroyo from development, he had to hire a lawyer to save Frontera from the Central Appraisal District.

Although Teschner deeded the 90-acre arroyo to the nonprofit Frontera, the city's first land trust, as a perpetual preserve, the CAD placed a $900,000 value on the property based on its apartment and residential zoning and fought to keep it there.

The dispute was finally resolved this April, but it took nearly two years and $24,000 in lawyer fees to convince the CAD to reduce Resler Canyon's valuation to $200, said Teschner, who hired the lawyer and paid his fees.

He is not wholly critical of the CAD because what he did was something new, but Teschner said there were communication problems among the Appraisal
Review Board and the appraisal district's staff that delayed a resolution.

"The big problem was there was no precedent for it," Teschner said. "No one had ever gifted that amount of money for property that would be held as a nature preserve. It had never been done before."

On Tuesday, the El Paso City Council will consider the creation of an open space zoning category that Teschner and others think is needed to help with arroyo preservation.

In 2005, the City Council was trying to keep a subsidiary of Hunt Building from putting a 100-home subdivision in and around Resler Canyon, resulting in a lawsuit by Hunt against the city.

At the height of the fight, Teschner, a UTEP linguistics professor, stepped forward and offered to use his $2 million family inheritance to buy the arroyo.

Hunt eventually agreed, dropped its suit and in December 2005, Teschner handed the canyon over to the nonprofit Frontera Land Alliance, El Paso's
first land trust, with a strict deed declaring it to be a nature preserve and barring all commercial uses.

In the process, Frontera renamed the arroyo the Charlie Wakeem/ Richard Teschner Nature Preserve of Resler Canyon. Wakeem is president of the Coronado Neighborhood Association and a member of Frontera's board.

Frontera filed for a wildlife exemption with the CAD in the spring of 2007, but declined to recognize the exemption and stood by the $900,000 valuation despite the deed restrictions.

That meant a whopping $27,000 tax bill would soon follow, so Wakeem and Maria Trunk, then Frontera's executive director, appealed the valuation and
made their case to the CAD staff.

"They dragged their feet for a year and a half, and kept stalling and stalling and stalling," Wakeem said.

In the summer of 2007, Teschner hired Richard Feuille, a lawyer specializing in valuations, and they joined Wakeem and Trunk in appearing before the
Appraisal Review Board.

This April, the situation finally was resolved, with the valuation of the fourth and final parcel in the canyon retroactively set at $50, the same as the other three parcels.

CAD's assistant chief appraiser, Dinah Kilgore, downplayed the difficulties and expense Frontera went through, but conceded that in the end, the reduction in value was based on the deed restrictions.

"As long as the covenants and restrictions stay as they are, then I would assume the value wouldn't change," she said, noting that Frontera didn't qualify for the wildlife exemption or as a nonprofit when it came to the
property valuation.

Without the lawyer's involvement, Teschner said, the fight would still be going on, which is why the city needs a voluntary zoning category for open space - something the CAD will understand immediately.

City Manager Joyce Wilson and the city staff contend that the city doesn't need a new zoning category, but Teschner and others who know what Frontera
went through over Resler Canyon intend to appear before City Council to disagree .

"Resler Canyon is still zoned for apartment, residential and commercial use. There's a lot of resistance to the open space zoning category from the city's senior staff," Wakeem said. "The purpose of open space zoning is to
set aside ecologically sensitive Public Service Board land and other land like Resler Canyon that is owned by a land trust."