Preservation development

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Preservation development is a model of real-estate development that addresses farmland preservation. It shares many attributes with conservation development, with the addition of strategies for maintaining and operating productive agriculture and silviculture, often in perpetuity. A preservation development is a planned community that allows limited, carefully designed development (typically housing) on a working farm, while placing the majority of productive land under a system of easements and community governance to ensure a continuity of farming and environmental stewardship.

Contents

Goals

Preservation development is not a formal planning approach, but an example of goal-oriented environmental planning. Particular characteristics of the land, local market and local agricultural norms influence the tools to be deployed in each case. The successful project should, however, aim to meet several goals: [1]

  1. 80% or more of the target parcel's agricultural productivity should be retained.
  2. Development should take a form that does not interfere with productive land uses.
  3. Legal constructions should make land protections permanent, but flexible.
  4. Community Governance and management structures should be created to ensure stewardship of the community.
  5. The community should advance public education on the value of rural lands.

Origins

Preservation development was developed in the 1980s in response to rapid farmland loss due to urban sprawl around Boston. Robert Baldwin, Sr. devised the system of interlocking "farmbelt" and "greenbelt" easements. [2] The system, and associated design and community governance tools, was refined through the 1990s on projects around New England. In 2005, this model was expanded into the Southeast, beginning with the 2,300 acre (931 ha) Bundoran Farm, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Relationship to other conservation methods

In the United States, most land is conserved by a combination of charitable giving and tax incentives. Parcels with ecological, historic or scenic value may be voluntarily placed under conservation easement, which prohibits or significantly limits future development of the land. The landowner may be directly compensated for the easement (Purchase of Development Rights), or the future-development rights may be considered a donation, subject to tax credits offsetting income taxes due. In some US states, the tax credits may be sold to generate income from the transaction. In a few localities, future-development rights may be sold or traded (Transferable development rights), and redeployed in urbanizing areas. [3] [4]

Preservation development is a market-based approach, and does not rely on taxpayer funding or charitable donation. The landowner sells the land. Development and land protections are enacted simultaneously, and the resulting subdivided parcels are sold to individuals. [5] The value of each parcel is increased by adjacency and access to the conserved land, which allows development density significantly below that allowed by zoning. [6]

Sustainable development

Preservation development is a type of sustainable development wherein the natural carrying capacity of land is considered not only in terms of development but also in agricultural capacity and ecological service. Rather than maximizing development, developers seek a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) balance between social, environmental and economic factors. [7]

Smart growth

New Urbanism and smart growth promote density, interconnectivity and access to transit as desirable goals of urban planning. Both approaches privilege development in infill locations and brownfields. Preservation Development's focus on greenfield sites with active agriculture and forestry places has placed it outside the mainstream of either movement.

Since 2001, however, New Urbanist planners Duany / Plater-Zyberk have promoted a "transect" zoning approach, recognizing the need to extend Smart Growth approaches to highly urbanized and rural locations. These new codes address development pressure in exurban locations, as does Preservation Development. In this context, Preservation Development is an appropriate settlement pattern for the two or three lowest-density landscape types on the transect, and insufficiently dense for the other categories.

Some communities with zoning influenced by tenets of Smart Growth have embraced preservation development as an additional tool for managing exurban growth.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smart growth</span>

Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation easement</span> Type of legal arrangement applying to land

In the United States, a conservation easement is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization or government to constrain, as to a specified land area, the exercise of rights otherwise held by a landowner so as to achieve certain conservation purposes. It is an interest in real property established by agreement between a landowner and land trust or unit of government. The conservation easement "runs with the land", meaning it is applicable to both present and future owners of the land. The grant of conservation easement, as with any real property interest, is part of the chain of title for the property and is normally recorded in local land records.

Growth management, in the United States, is a set of techniques used by the government to ensure that as the population grows that there are services available to meet their demands. Growth management goes beyond traditional land use planning, zoning and subdivision controls in both the characteristics of development influenced and the scope of government powers used. These are not necessarily only government services. Other demands such as the protection of natural spaces, sufficient and affordable housing, delivery of utilities, preservation of buildings and places of historical value, and sufficient places for the conduct of business are also considered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exurb</span> Area of less population and density than suburbs

An exurb is an area outside the typically denser inner suburban area, at the edge of a metropolitan area, which has some economic and commuting connection to the metro area, low housing density, and growth. It shapes an interface between urban and rural landscapes holding a limited urban nature for its functional, economic, and social interaction with the urban center, due to its dominant residential character. They consist of "agglomerations of housing and jobs outside the municipal boundaries of a primary city" and beyond the surrounding suburbs.

Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which they are organized and operated:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land-use planning</span> Process of regulating the use of land by a central authority

Land use planning is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. More specifically, the goals of modern land use planning often include environmental conservation, restraint of urban sprawl, minimization of transport costs, prevention of land use conflicts, and a reduction in exposure to pollutants. In the pursuit of these goals, planners assume that regulating the use of land will change the patterns of human behavior, and that these changes are beneficial. The first assumption, that regulating land use changes the patterns of human behavior is widely accepted. However, the second assumption - that these changes are beneficial - is contested, and depends on the location and regulations being discussed.

In urban planning in the United States, a community separator is a parcel of undeveloped land, sometimes in the form of open space, separating two or more urban areas under different municipal jurisdictions which has been designated to provide a permanent low-density area preserving the communal integrity of the two municipalities. Separators are typically created by one or more municipalities in situations of rapid urban growth, where unchecked development might otherwise result in the contiguity of the urban areas. A unilateral separator that partially or completely encircles a municipality is commonly known as a greenbelt.

The urban-to-ruraltransect is an urban planning model created by the New Urbanist Andrés Duany. The transect defines a series of zones that transition from sparse rural farmhouses to the dense urban core. Each zone is fractal in that it contains a similar transition from the edge to the center of the neighborhood. The transect is an important part of the New Urbanism and smart growth movements. Duany's firm DPZ has embodied the transect philosophy into their SmartCode generic planning code for municipal ordinances.

A planned unit development (PUD) is a type of flexible, non-Euclidean zoning device that redefines the land uses allowed within a stated land area. PUDs consist of unitary site plans that promote the creation of open spaces, mixed-use housing and land uses, environmental preservation and sustainability, and development flexibility. Areas rezoned as PUDs include building developments, designed groupings of both varied and compatible land uses —such as housing, recreation, commercial centers, and industrial parks— within one contained development or subdivision. Developed areas vary in size and by zoned uses, such as industrial, commercial, and residential. Other types of similar zoning devices include floating zones, overlay zones, special district zoning, performance-based codes, and transferable development rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infill</span> Rededication of land in an urban environment to new construction

In urban planning, infill, or in-fill, is the rededication of land in an urban environment, usually open-space, to new construction. Infill also applies, within an urban polity, to construction on any undeveloped land that is not on the urban margin. The slightly broader term "land recycling" is sometimes used instead. Infill has been promoted as an economical use of existing infrastructure and a remedy for urban sprawl. Its detractors view it as overloading urban services, including increased traffic congestion and pollution, and decreasing urban green-space. Many also detract it for social and historical reasons, partly due to its unproven effects and its similarity with gentrification.

A Form-Based Code (FBC) is a means of regulating land development to achieve a specific urban form. Form-Based Codes foster predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form as the organizing principle, with less focus on land use, through municipal regulations. An FBC is a regulation, not a mere guideline, adopted into city, town, or county law and offers a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prime farmland</span>

Prime farmland is a designation assigned by U.S. Department of Agriculture defining land that has the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics for producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops and is also available for these land uses.

SmartCode is a unified land development ordinance template for planning and urban design. Originally developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, this open source program is a model form-based unified land development ordinance designed to create walkable neighborhoods across the full spectrum of human settlement, from the most rural to the most urban, incorporating a transect of character and intensity within each. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and basic architectural standards into one compact document. Because the SmartCode enables community vision by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally calibrated by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation development</span>

Conservation development, also known as conservation design, is a controlled-growth land use development that adopts the principle for allowing limited sustainable development while protecting the area's natural environmental features in perpetuity, including preserving open space landscape and vista, protecting farmland or natural habitats for wildlife, and maintaining the character of rural communities. A conservation development is usually defined as a project that dedicates a minimum of 50 percent of the total development parcel as open space. The management and ownership of the land are often formed by the partnership between private land owners, land-use conservation organizations and local government. It is a growing trend in many parts of the country, particularly in the Western United States. In the Eastern United States, conservation design has been promoted by some state and local governments as a technique to help preserve water quality.

Farmland preservation is a joint effort by non-governmental organizations and local governments to set aside and protect examples of a region's farmland for the use, education, and enjoyment of future generations. They are operated mostly at state and local levels by government agencies or private entities such as land trusts and are designed to limit conversion of agricultural land to other uses that otherwise might have been more financially attractive to the land owner. Every state provides tax relief through differential (preferential) assessment. Less common approaches include establishing agricultural districts, using zoning to protect agricultural land, purchasing development rights, and transferable development rights. It is often a part of regional planning and national historic preservation.

Private landowner assistance program (PLAP) is a class of government assistance program available throughout the U.S. for landowners interested in maintaining, developing, improving and protecting wildlife on their property. Each state provides various programs that assist landowners in agriculture, forestry and conserving wildlife habitat. This helps landowners in the practice of good land stewardship and provides multiple benefits to the environment. Some states offer technical assistance which includes:

Development-supported agriculture is a nascent movement in real estate development that preserves and invests in agricultural land use. As farmland is lost due to the challenging economics of farming and the pressures of the real estate industry, DSA attempts to reconcile the need for development with the need to preserve agricultural land. The overall goal of DSA is to incubate small-scale organic farms that co-exist with residential land development, providing benefits to farmers, residents, the local community, and the environment.

Transferable development rights (TDR) is a method by which developers can purchase the development rights of certain parcels within a designated "sending district" and transfer the rights to another "receiving district" to increase the density of their new development. The underlying legal concept of a transfer of development rights programme is the notion that all land has a bundle of property rights. It is used for controlling land use to complement land-use planning and zoning for more effective urban growth management and land conservation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montgomery County, Maryland Agricultural Reserve</span>

The Agricultural Reserve is a designated land use zone in Montgomery County, Maryland. The 93,000 acres (380 km2) zone was created in 1980 by the Montgomery County Council to preserve farm land and rural space in the northwestern part of the county. The farmland protection program has been characterized as "the most famous, most studied and most emulated" program of its kind in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning</span>

The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) manages planning and development in Howard County, Maryland, a Central Maryland jurisdiction equidistant between Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

References

  1. Ned Carter, "Build It (Farm It!) and They Will Come", The Piedmont Virginian, Winter 2010, pp. 12-13.
  2. Richard Peiser, "Saving the Family Farm", Urban Land December 1996.
  3. Nelson, Arthur C.; Pruetz, Rick; Woodruff, Doug (2011). The TDR Handbook: Designing and Implementing Transfer of Development Rights Programs. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. ISBN   9781610911597.
  4. "Transfer of Development Rights; Fact Sheet" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: American Farmland Trust. April 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-01-16.
  5. For Sale: Condo with Chicken Coop, Sara Schaeffer Munoz, in The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2007.
  6. Organic Farms as Subdivision Amenities, Alec Appelbaum in The New York Times, July 1, 2009.
  7. Nell Porter Brown, "Keeping it Green", Harvard Magazine Nov/Dec 2008, v. 111-2, p. 24.