Loudoun Board Rejects PDR Pilot
On October 16, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors (BOS) voted to remove a proposed Purchase Development Rights (PDR) pilot project from the work program for the Department of Planning and Zoning. The motion to remove the pilot was introduced by Supervisor Letourneau (Dulles) and passed by a 5 to 4 vote with Supervisors Briskman (Algonkin), Glass (Broad Run), Umstattd (Leesburg) and Saines (Sterling) voting to remove the program.
PDR is a voluntary program in which a landowner sells the development rights of a parcel of land to a public agency, land trust or unit of government. A conservation easement is recorded that permanently limits development. While the right to develop or subdivide that land is permanently restricted, the landowner retains all other rights and responsibilities associated with that land and can use or sell it for purposes allowed in the easement.
The intent of a PDR program is to permanently protect working farm and forest land, open space, or aesthetically pleasing landscapes from development, while retaining private ownership and management.
22 Virginia localities have PDR programs including Clarke, Fauquier, Shenandoah, Rappahannock, and Stafford counties. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) helps fund local PDR programs and recently announced awards totaling $875,000 from the Virginia Farmland Preservation Fund to six localities including Clarke, Fauquier, Shenandoah, and Stafford Counties.
Loudoun County had a PDR Program beginning in 2001. However, the BOS defunded it in 2004. Many conservation/environmental organizations in Loudoun, including Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains, have been advocating for the renewal of the program since it was defunded. The program is one more important tool the County could use to help preserve open space, farmland and control development in western Loudoun.
The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) had worked with Western Loudoun Supervisors TeKrony (Little River) and Kershner (Catoctin) plus Supervisor Turner (Ashburn) to design a small PDR pilot project which would focus on one eastern Loudoun parcel to leverage federal and state funding that is specifically allocated for PDR programs.
According to an October 17th article in Loudoun Now by Hanna Pampaloni, Supervisor Turner told the Board “… PEC, to their credit, basically carved out a very nominal and manageable pilot program, I think, based on the presentation I received, it could be set up, so it has minimal staff oversight. There are ways to administer a pilot program with relatively low staff input.” The amount of staff time necessary to administer a PDR program has been a long-standing board concern.
The pilot project was supported by Supervisors Turner (Ashburn), Kershner (Catoctin), TeKrony (Little River) plus Chair Randall.
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