The United States loses over four thousand acres of farmland and natural
areas to development every day. Zoning is not a permanent solution.
And few communities are able to use tax dollars for meaningful open space
preservation.
However, a growing number of communities are using a market-based preservation
technique called transfer of development rights, or TDR. With TDR, the owners
of land that these communities want to save, called sending areas, are
compensated for voluntarily restricting their development potential. The
owners of land that these communities want to grow, called receiving areas,
are allowed additional development potential, but only when they participate
in the preservation of the sending areas.
Beyond Takings and Givings updates and expands the 1997 publication
Saved By Development, until now, the most comprehensive book on TDR.
Beyond Takings and Givings offers a progress report on most of the
112 TDR programs profiled in the 1997 book plus case studies of 30 additional
programs. Beyond Takings and Givings provides a step-by-step guide
to creating a TDR program and addresses the most commonly asked questions
on this topic. What is TDR? How did TDR evolve? What can TDR accomplish?
Where is TDR used? Where has TDR worked best? What are TDR’s success factors?
What are TDRs advantages and disadvantages? How does TDR compare with other
implementation tools? Why doesn’t everyone use TDR? And, for communities
where adoption of a traditional TDR program seems doubtful, Beyond Takings
and Givings explains density transfer charges, a tool that reduces the
seemingly complex TDR mechanism to a single requirement.
In addition, Beyond Takings and Givings places TDR within the context
of the ongoing property rights debate. Some property rights advocates believe
that governments should compensate for regulations that reduce but do not
eliminate property value, or “partial takings”. In contrast, some community
rights advocates argue that compensation is inappropriate because value
reductions are offset by the value increases created by government actions
and regulations, often without reimbursement, or “givings”. TDR offers a
practical alternative to this stalemate. It recaptures a portion of the extra
value created by additional development at TDR receiving sites and uses it
to offset value reductions experienced by the owners of sending area land
who voluntarily restrict the development potential of their properties.
Rick Pruetz, American Institute of Certified Planners, holds a Master
of Urban Planning degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has
been a planner for 24 years and runs a consulting practice specializing in
TDR workshops, studies and ordinances.
Donald I. Berger, author of the chapter on TDR’s legal considerations,
is a partner in the Los Angeles office of the Morrison & Foerster law
firm. He specializes in land use and real estate law and represents clients
in California and nationwide on development and land regulation
issues.
You can order Beyond Takings and Givings directly
from Arje Press by phone at (310) 749-5535 or e-mail:
arje@attglobal.net.
You can also order online from the California Planning &
Development Report Bookstore at
www.cp-dr.com
and from
Amazon.com.
© Copyright 2003-2004 by Rick Pruetz |