Gov. Terry McAuliffe
A James City County program designed to safeguard rural lands from intense development has received a nearly $300,000 grant from Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
The Purchase of Development Rights program is voluntary and pays landowners to protect their land from development. James City County has paid eight landowners a total of about $3.5 million to preserve 701 acres since the program’s inception.
To participate in the program, landowners situated outside the Primary Service Area — a large swath of the county where more intense development is permitted — interested in participating in the program apply to the county to sell their development rights.
County staff then considers numerous factors like the quality of the soils, the size of the land, the current risk of development and more before forwarding the applications to the board of supervisors for final approval.
If approved, the landowners receive a sum of money and the county receives what is known as a conservation easement on the land. With the easement, the county gets to have a greater say over what happens on the land. So while the property owner continues to pay taxes and can use the land in certain approved ways, such as living on it, the county gets to ensure its more rural areas retain their characteristics.
“The idea is to better protect some of the more developable parcels remaining,” said Ed Overton, the county’s PDR administrator, “particularly those with prime agricultural soils.”
Once land is in the program, it is not easy to get out. Some of the easements have clauses allowing landowners to petition the county after 25 years to remove the easement, but only if that property owner can offer comparable land to put in the program. The other easements do not have that provision, effectively cementing them as undevelopable in perpetuity.
The 701 acres in the program are primarily concentrated in the upper end of the county, near Barnes and Diascund roads and Toano. There are currently three pending applications — totaling about 300 acres — before the county seeking admission to the PDR program.
The county primarily uses taxpayer dollars to fund the program, though it has received grant funding in the past from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. There is currently about $700,000 in the county’s PDR account.
Overton said the interest in the program is “consistent,” with an application or two usually before the county for consideration.
The state has distributed $9.7 million in PDR funds since 2008, when the funds were first awarded. Along with James City County, Virginia Beach and Albemarle, Fauquier and Stafford counties received a $286,983 grant. Clarke County received a $146,778 grant.
“Today’s announcement takes another step toward my administration’s goal of permanently conserving 400,000 acres of open space and working lands across Virginia,” McAuliffe said in a news release announcing the grant award. “Preserving our working farmland is a great way to help our largest private sector industry, agriculture, and work toward building the New Virginia Economy.”
Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward said in the release the preservation of farm and forest lands supports healthy fish and wildlife populations, clean air and clean water.
There are 22 PDR programs across the state.