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to protect scenic property, it’s got to be real farms,” explained McCarthy. The county administrator emphasized that the intent of the District is to purchase development rights from large landowners who are cash poor, who would otherwise be motivated to sell their land as small parcels for development.
This new Farmland Preservation Fund would replace an already existing county program, the Farmland Preservation Program, which has a similar aim. During the past year, the Farmland Preservation Program spent $105,000 on the purchase of development rights for a large Rappahannock farm, combining with other agencies to make the purchase. However, the Farmland Preservation Program uses money gathered exclusively from rollback taxes to fund itself.
According to McCarthy, those taxes have proved an unreliable source of funding, because the county never knows year to year what the available funds for purchasing development rights will be.
“It’s hard to make an offer to a farmer when you don’t know how much money will be around,” said McCarthy.
Not everyone agrees with McCarthy that the purchase of development rights is the best use of county tax dollars.
“I’m against using taxpayer money to induce large landowners to go into scenic easement,” explained Jean Lillard, of Flint Hill.
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