PROGRAM LETS OWNERS SHIFT DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS FROM RURAL TO URBAN PROPERTIES
BY KATIE THISDELL
Stafford County’s Planning Commission wants to know what you think about moving potential development from rural to urban areas.
Known as transfer of development rights, the program’s primary goal is to permanently conserve open spaces while clustering development in areas already identified for higher density growth.
“To me, it’s a no-brainer,” said Supervisor Paul Milde, who has led the TDR effort in Stafford.
The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the County Administration Building.
The transfer of development rights program describes land in terms of “sending” and “receiving” areas.
Here’s how it works: If you own land in the sending area, and it fits certain specifications set by the county (number of acres, for example), you can voluntarily sell the development rights for that property—and you still own the land itself. A conservation easement is placed on the land, which requires that it remain open space.
The development rights for that land are sent to the “receiving” area, which, in the case of this pilot program, are the Courthouse and Brooke Station urban development areas, identified as sites of mixed-use high-density development.
Some properties in the sending area could include plots in the now-abandoned development Crows Nest Harbor, once envisioned as a community of 20,000 in eastern Stafford. Since the 1960s, the rugged area has been owned by various developers with grand plans. A lack of sewer and water lines has been one factor holding back development there.
In September, supervisors sent their proposed TDR ordinance to the Planning Commission. The matter could come back to the supervisors for a vote early next year.
Identified in the Comprehensive Plan, the TDR program would be just the second in the state.
Frederick County, which surrounds Winchester, approved a TDR program in April 2010, a year after the General Assembly revised the state code.
Another program already in Stafford and 22 other localities is called purchase of development rights. Local, state and federal money is used to compensate landowners who voluntarily place a conservation easement on their property.
Essentially, the local government pays to ensure that the property is never developed, while the landowner keeps the land.
Stafford began a PDR program in 2009, but after buying development rights for 98 acres, the county ran out of money. Some funding is again available, and the county could apply for state grants, said Jeff Harvey, the county’s planning and zoning director.
“The question is if we can collect enough money to make it attractive for someone to sell their development rights,” Harvey said.
What may be both a pro and a con for the transfer program compared with the purchase one is that there is less regulation by the local government.
“The county really doesn’t get into the change in ownership and money,” Harvey said of the transfer of development rights. Instead, it is primarily between the landowner and a developer or other purchaser.
But this by-right nature of the process has been pointed out as one of the negatives of TDR, because there is no public review process to approve the transfer. That means a development with a higher density than the zoning previously allowed could be started in a receiving area without neighbors knowing anything about it or having any say.
Two of the county’s seven UDAs are slated to be receiving areas because it makes sense, Harvey said, to make density transfers to an area that will already be changing.
Katie Thisdell: 540/735-1975
kthisdell@freelancestar.com
