As a way of exploring whether the idea of transferable development rights (TDR) has a place in Albemarle County, “stakeholder” talks got underway last week. David Slutzky, the county supervisor who has been hawking the idea since fall 2006, is still enthusiastic about the possibilities, and he spent most of the first meeting laying out his version of a TDR plan.
“We will have five or six meetings and see where we are,” says Slutzky. In early 2007, he brought his “strawman proposal” to the Board of Supervisors, but pulled it after few other supervisors showed interest.
 David Slutzky is still pursuing the idea of transferable development rights, this time with about 30 stakeholders. |
The basics of Slutzky’s TDR program are that, in exchange for rural area downzoning, a landowner in the rural area could sell his development right to a developer to use in an expanded growth area, thus clustering growth near existing infrastructure and preserving open space. Farmers sell the development rights without selling the farm, developers build by-right without having to go begging at public meetings, and the county doesn’t lose its countryside to sprawl. The major difficulty rests in setting up a market that actually works for all parties involved.
With only five meetings scheduled and such a large group, it will be difficult to find consensus on such a complicated proposition. Thirty to 40 people showed up to the first meeting. Those “stakeholders” include property rights advocates, like Forever Albemarle and the Farm Bureau; environmentalists from the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC); members of the real estate development community like Chuck Rotgin and Dave Phillips; and a slew of others.
“It’s a very smart and engaged group,” says SELC’s Morgan Butler, one of the attendees, “so if this idea can be crafted into something that might work for the community, it seems like a good group of people to be working on it.”
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