Using LESA in a purchase of development rights program

Excerpt

PURCHASE of development rights (PDR) has become an increasingly popular farmland preservation tool. In 1980, only four states—Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire—-and a handfull of individual counties (most notably Suffolk County, New York) were using PDR programs (3). In the mid-1980s, King County, Washington, raised $50 million to purchase development rights to farmland in the greater Seattle area (5). And as of 1990 active purchase of development rights programs for farmland preservation exist in all the New England states except Maine and in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and Forsyth County, North Carolina (1, 3).

Under a PDR program, the landowner sells the right to develop the land but retains all other rights and responsibilities (4). In this way the landowner receives financial compensation in exchange for keeping the land in farming and open space. The sale of development rights is recorded as an easement attached to the landowner's deed, and the easement stays on the deed even if the land is sold or passed on through inheritance.

A common task in PDR programs is identifying and ranking farms on which to purchase development rights. Some programs are designed to base …