Agenda - 06-03-1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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FA 6. Which land owners would be eligible? Landowners with parcels at least 10 acres in size and in agricultural, forestry, and /or open space use would be eligible for participation in the program. Although not consistent with the minimum sized parcel needed for agricultural use (20 acres), this threshold is consistent with North Carolina legislation which exempts the division of land into parcels of greater than 10 acres from municipal and county subdivision regulations. Smaller parcels would be considered if they were contiguous to land on which development rights had already been acquired. 7. How would the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) Program operate and who would administer it? Six basic steps are proposed for the PDR Program. Based loosely on the Forsyth County model, the steps are described below and illustrated on Figure 3. Step 1 - Submission of Application: To initiate the PDR process, an advertisement would be published in all newspapers having general circulation in the county. Interested farmland owners would then have 60 days from the date of the advertisement in which to complete and submit a PDR application form to the Planning & Inspections Department. Interested landowners are not required to offer all their property to be considered for acquisition of development rights. They may offer all or a part of their property. Applications would be reviewed and any additions or corrections requested within 30 days following submission. Two application cycles would take place each year, so a property owner who missed one cycle would be able to take advantage of the next and not have to wait an entire year. Step 2 - Ranking of Applications: Upon receipt of all applications, the Agricultural Districts Advisory Board would review and rank each of the agricultural land tracts for which an application has been submitted. Site visits would be conducted as part of the review procedure to insure familiarity with the property and its setting. The ranking method recommended by the Agricultural Districts Advisory Board is through evaluation of farms using the Soil Conservation Service's LESA system. The LESA system refers to the Land Evaluation and Site Assessment system developed by the Soil Conservation Service in the mid- 1980's. The system has been used extensively and focuses on the quality or productivity of a given site; e.g., land evaluation, and its continued economic viability; e.g., site assessment. The major advantage of such a system is that the most productive and economically viable farmlands are preserved. The LESA System is discussed in detail in Report #2 of this proposal, but a Page - 11