General Assembly considers farmland preservation bill

The General Assembly is considering a bill that would provide greater state support to programs that help preserve working farmland.

Senate Bill 477, which passed the Senate earlier this month and cleared its first step in the House yesterday, would increase incentives to jurisdictions that purchase property development rights from landowners.

Under "purchase of development rights" (PDR)programs with the Virginia Office of Farmland Preservation, a county will buy the development rights to working agricultural land and place the property in conservation easement. The property owners who sell their land receive a lump sum of cash and the county restricts development, even if it is later sold, ensuring its preservation.

The Office of Farmland Preservation this year began offering matching funds to local governments that buy development rights from landowners under the PDR programs. The bill before the General Assembly, which is being sponsored by Sen. Emmett Hanger Jr. (R-Augusta), would expand state support by calling on the Office of Farmland Preservation to offer greater incentives for participation.

The PDR programs complement a more popular conservation approach in which landowners enter a preservation agreement with a landholding body, such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, and in return receive tax credits.

"The vast majority of people donate their land to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and they get a tax credit out of it," said Rappahannock County Administrator John McCarthy.

He said the up-front-cash incentive of the PDR programs better fits the needs of some landowners.

"This program basically exists for those property owners who don't have the income and basically need the cash," McCarthy said.

Rappahannock County puts aside about $50,000 a year for purchase of development rights, McCarthy said. Before the Office of Farmland Preservation began offering dollar-for-dollar matching funds to counties participating in the PDR program, Rappahannock purchased the rights for only one property, paying about $170,000 for the rights on a 346-acre farm, McCarthy said. Rappahannock is looking into two properties this year after qualifying for the PDR program to receive matching state funds, he said.

Localities must apply for certification to receive matching funds. Rappahannock, Fauquier and 19 other localities throughout Virginia have certified PDR programs with the Office of Farmland Preservation.

Sen. Hanger's bill as originally written would have provided twice as much state funding for every dollar a county puts into the purchase of development rights. The increase, however, would have been restricted to what likely would have been a small number of qualifying jurisdictions.

The bill was revised, however, to provide incentives to all jurisdictions with certified PDR programs and passed the Senate by a 40-0 vote.

In its revised form, the bill does not specify what incentives will be offered, but preservation groups think that the new version of the bill would provide greater help than the original.

"I think we're actually expecting more from the language," said Lindsay Potts, the assistant director of government relations with the Virginia Farm Bureau.

Potts said it would be up to the Office of Farmland Preservation to decide what incentives to provide.

"It would capture more counties and get to the point of what they were trying to do," she said.

Bob Lee, executive director of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, would welcome the increased state support.

"I think what they're doing is creating as many options for protecting agricultural land uses for the future as possible," he said.

This past Tuesday Governor Kaine announced that he had distributed $4.25 million in funding for PDR programs in fourteen localities across the state.

"For the past several years, we have lost valuable farmlands to development at an alarming rate," Kaine said. "Today we have taken an historic step to ensure that well-managed farmland around the Commonwealth will be preserved and available for continued agricultural use, now and into the future. These funds will benefit Virginia’s farmers, the local economies and the environment."

Rappahannock County was one of the fourteen counties that Kaine listed. It received $165,000.