Scott Everett, Agriculture Preserve Boards of Michigan, worked with UW-Extension to provide the educational opportunity. During the tour’s first evening, Everett mentioned that the tour had been conducted nine times for Michigan and was called the farmland preservation tour. He emphasized that it’s now called the land use tour. “It was pointed out to me by the UW-Extension partners that we not only learn about farmland preservation but upwards of a dozen innovative land use tools that focus not only on farmland preservation, but also increasing development density, effective master planning, affordable housing, agriculture economic development, and intergovernmental cooperation”.

A total of 14 innovative land use tools were investigated by the Wisconsin travelers. Mark Doornink, who lives in Clintonville and installs specialized technology on dairy farms for Valley Ag Software, said he feels this is exactly why a number of leaders from Waupaca County started investigating the opportunity for this type of learning experience over two years ago. “We had reached a point in our county comprehensive planning process where we needed to learn more about innovative tools beyond the same old ones we’ve used for so long in Wisconsin. Agriculture people need to kick the tires, not just talk about them in a room, and this trip offered the opportunity to do that and learn from farmers”. Doornink attended the third tour, but was instrumental along with a number of others in Waupaca County for getting the first two tours off the ground. A total of 32 people from Waupaca County have participated.

Although a majority of the tour is spent on farms and many of the participants are farmers, some are probably shocked to find much of the first and second day touring residential developments that have three to four houses per acre. Bill Hussmann, developer of Hallowell located in Montgomery County, Md., a 1,200 unit residential development, explained to the group that coupling farmland preservation with the ability to increase housing density is critical. “For farmland preservation to work, you must have livable urban communities supported by policies that reward developers with increased density,” he said.

The density in Hallowell is 22 percent greater because Hussmann used a program called Transfer of Development Rights. The concept is based on the fact that each property owner has a bundle of property rights. One of those rights is the right to develop. In Montgomery County, Md., a property owner can sell their development rights to a developer who in turn uses them to build more houses than they normally would have through increased density.

Hussmann stated that the negotiation for development rights is no different than any other real estate transaction. It’s a private party transaction that is recorded in the Register of Deeds office just like when someone buys a home. “Because the program was relatively new when I developed Hallowell and farmers were just learning about it, once it took a suitcase of one dollar bills to close the deal because they wouldn’t accept a check”.

From Hallowell participants proceeded to Carroll County, Md., to examine their Purchase of Development Rights Program (PDR). A PDR program is synonymous with what the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection is calling a Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE). PACE is one of the strategies currently being proposed to help implement recommendations made by the Working Lands Initiative Steering Committee.

A PACE program also takes advantage of a landowner’s ability to separate the development rights from the rest of the property. The primary difference between a purchase program and a transfer program is that the transaction occurs between a public or non-profit entity and the landowner, rather than two private parties engaging in the transaction. In Carroll County, the county government purchases the development right which is then effectively extinguished.

Carroll County has preserved over 50,000 acres. Some of this acreage belongs to Jason Myers. Myers milks 55 Holsteins on his family farm that his daughter and son-in-law are poised to take over along with their young son. Myers told the 15 or so dairy farmers on the trip that they should not sell their development rights to cash in but for the future of the agriculture community. “The big reason to do this is right here (as he put his hands on his grandson’s shoulders and choked back a few tears). This little guy will see the biggest benefit of the program,” Myers said.

Comments »

Comment on this story

Comments will be approved within 48 hours

Name:

Email: (optional)

Comments:

Image Verification: (Case sensitive)