Saved By Development: Preserving Environmental Areas, Farmland

This is the most comprehensive guide yet published on transfer of development rights, or TDR, the market-driven technique that uses private sector profits rather than public dollars to permanently preserve environmentally-sensitive areas, agricultural land, historic sites, open space, infrastructure capacity, housing, urban scale and other important community assets.

In a step-by-step approach, this book demonstrates how to prepare regulations which motivate private property owners to voluntarily deed-restrict their land and transfer growth to areas where communities want additional development. The author is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. However, Saved By Development will be of equal interest to environmentalists, historic preservationists, farmland advocates, government officials, elected office holders and anyone else concerned about the effects of uncontrolled growth.

Transfer of development rights, or TDR, responds to a predicament faced by most communities. These communities believe that they can't protect privately-owned property because they have no funding for compensation. As explained in Saved By Development, TDR motivates owners to voluntarily preserve their properties for non-development purposes in return for being able to sell their "development rights". These development rights are purchased, not by public agencies, but by private sector developers who use them to build additional development in areas where communities want extra growth. So with TDR, development pays for preservation.

As our population soars, the demand for preservation will also rise as more and more people see the need to preserve what remains of our natural, agricultural and historic resources. Likewise, the fiscal constraints facing governments will also grow, requiring market-based solutions rather than public funding. This book helps prepare for preservation in the 21st Century.