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Agriculture
Secretary Art Brown, Jr., (center) presented
a check for $10,000 to Chesterfield Mayor
Lawrence Durr (second from left) as partial
reimbursement for the Township's efforts
to establish a transfer of development rights
land preservation program. Attending the
presentation were Assemblyman Melvin Cottrell
(far left), former Mayor G. Richard Lange
(third from left) under whose administration
the effort began, Burlington County Planning
Director Susan Kraft (third from right),
State Senator Martha Bark, and Burlington
County Freeholder Director William Haines,
Jr. |
Art
Brown, Jr., New Jersey Agriculture Secretary
and chairman of the state's Transfer of Development
Rights (TDR) Bank, today presented a $10,000
check to Chesterfield Township Mayor Lawrence
H. Durr and other local officials at the municipal
building in Chesterfield. Chesterfield Township
is the second municipality to adopt an enabling
TDR program ordinance under the Burlington County
Transfer of Development Rights Demonstration
Act. Chesterfield's interest in establishing
a TDR program reflects the desire of its residents
to retain the rural landscape of the township
while encouraging planned economic and residential
development. Moreover, the TDR program can steer
potential development into designated receiving
areas, thereby minimizing potential conflicts
between farmers and non-farming neighbors. Under
the TDR program, a municipality can identify
rural and agricultural areas, environmentally
sensitive areas, open space, forested lands,
aquifers, coastal areas, reservoir watersheds,
wetlands and historic sites for preservation
while targeting limited locations for clustered
residential and commercial growth. By law, the
TDR Bank is authorized to reimburse municipalities
which have adopted viable development transfer
ordinances for up to 50 percent of the cost of
the planning associated with the ordinance or
$10,000, whichever is less. The TDR Bank was
allocated $20 million under the Open Space Preservation
Bond Act of 1989. A TDR program has four basic
elements:
- A
sending area, so called because the development
potential would be transferred, or "sent," away
from these areas. In sending areas, development
would be restricted. An area designated by
the municipality to "receive" development.
These are the growth areas of the town where
development would be permitted. Transferrable
development credits, representing the development
potential of a given property (the difference
between the full development value and the
farm value of the property). In order to build
at a higher-than-zoned density in the receiving
area, a developer would have to purchase credits
from a landowner in a sending area. The purchase
of development credits compensates those in
the sending area where land development is
restricted.
- A
master plan and ordinances establishing the
structure of the TDR program. The municipal
planning board and governing body decides where
growth can best be accommodated and supported,
which areas of the township should be preserved
as farmland or other open space and exactly
how much growth the town should ultimately
accommodate. Base densities are established
throughout the township, with each specified
area entitled to build a certain number and
kind of units.
TDR
programs can improve the development potential
of areas zoned for development by awarding "development
credits" to parcels in the preservation zone.
The equity of landowners in restricted development
areas is thereby protected because they can sell
the credits to developers or, in some cases,
to the TDR bank, for future development in an
approved area. The TDR Bank is governed by a
Board of Directors organized in January 1997.
Members include the Secretary of Agriculture,
the State Treasurer, Commissioners of the Departments
of Environmental Protection, Transportation,
Banking, and Community Affairs as well as the
president of the State Board of Agriculture,
the chairperson of the State Planning Commission,
the president of the Association of New Jersey
Environmental Commissions, and one farmer-member.
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