Talking Points

The Transfer of Development Rights Act will:

• Create a managed growth compromise between environmental protection and development;
• Allow development to continue in desirable areas determined by the market and simultaneously preserve environmentally sensitive and critical agricultural areas;
• Reduce the haphazard developmental affects on environmental, food supply, and quality of life in communities;
• Prevent economic consequences of stopping or reducing development by creating a controlled environment;
• Provide equity to landowners who hold land that is most valuable as open space or farmland. Financial gain is provided through the sale of development rights instead of a program that hinders development and offers no compensation; and
• Protect the environment, allow development, and let landowners receive financial compensation.

Current state and local zoning ordinances cannot adequately protect land, allow for development while escaping legal challenges, and often lack the necessary funds to purchase open space for protection. TDR programs:

• Are voluntary in nature and tend to avoid the legal “takings” issue;
• Make strong land use policies more political palatable and easier to implement because local officials experience less political pressure when landowners are being compensated for lost development rights;
• Reduce zoning variances as developers look to the market to secure development rights;
• Provide private funds for protecting open space, historical sites, and other land designated for public protection;
• Make development more predictable and easier to track. Instead of expending resources to negotiate variances to zoning ordinances, developers purchase development rights and can exceed zoning regulations; and
• Are more permanent than zoning regulations. TDR programs use deed restrictions and conservation easements to record and expire development rights and thus permanently protecting open space and historic sites. Zoning regulations can fluctuate over time and across administrations.

TDR programs are less burdensome on public funds while appealing to developers and landowners.

• The private sector buys the rights, saving the public from a large expense.
• TDR programs compensate landowners for land-use restrictions.
• They help to keep farmland prices affordable for agricultural uses.
• They can encourage development in designated growth areas where there is adequate public infrastructure.
• They can promote good community growth management.