Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 1 · column 4 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
jNew tools aid
preservation
of farmland
Del. Byrne speaks
to Farm Assn. Jan. 3
By LOU HATTER
Rappahannock Ncw> Staff Writer
During the last few sessions of Virginia’s General Assembly, several innovative techniques to aid the perservation of the state’s rural areas have been advanced.
One of the most promising of these tools is transfer of development rights (TDR), also known as transfer of development credits. Though the innovative concept has yet to be enacted into law by the state legislature, the , fight for its adoption will again be led this year by Piedmont Virginia’s counties, which see it as a way to cushion' the encroaching development from the metropolitian Washington, D.C: area.
Del,; Leslie L. Byrne (D-38th) of Falls Church is the chairwoman of the House and Senate Joint Committee on Growth Management Tools, which has studied techniques including TDRs, conditional zoning, vesting of property rights and public facilities ordinances. On Thursday, Jan. 3, Del. Byrne will visit Rappahannock County to speak about transferable development rights, or TDRs.
Del. Byrne was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1985, and has since become actively involved in a number of committees and groups studying development, particularly in the Northern Virginia area. She is a member of the Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns, the House Finance Committee, and is a member of the Dulles Task Force.
Del. Byrne, in an article to be published in the January, 1991 “Virginia Forum,” has said that the current economic slowdown may offer our area “one luxury we haven’t had in over a decade — time to think about how state and local governments should manage land use and development and about the relationship between land use and. increasing tax burdens and transportation problems.”
Del. Byrne suggests that zoning ordinances no longer provide the flexibility necessary to react to these increasing pressures, and she thinks that TDRs may be part of the answer. “We must move beyond zoning to mechanisms which help localities to phase, focus or pay the costs of additional growth.”
TDRs, she explained, are a technique “that allow(s) localities to focus growth in areas already having needed infrastructure (utilities, roads, etc.); thus, keeping areas for open space, agriculture, historic preservation, or • other community enhancements. ”
TDRs, which allow one landowner to transfer the rights to development of his land to another landowner in another location in exchange for a cash payment, offer several benefits.
For the community, they preserve open space or historically valuable properties from development. But unlike the traditional zoning method of restricting
See TDR, p. 3
92.1%