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4 <br />J. All tracts of land from which conservation easements were purchased with Federal <br />or State funds will be subject to Federal and State regulations concerning farmland <br />preservation. <br />K. Timbering shall be permitted when based on a valid management plan prepared by <br />a registered forester or consulting forester. <br />VM. Farmland Ranking System <br />The Farmland Ranking System will be used to rank, or prioritize, applications received <br />from landowners seeking sale, lease or donation of their conservation easements. The <br />system can be used for evaluating conversion impact. The system consists of two parts: <br />1. Site Assessment Criteri a: This part of the system consists of 10 factors, <br />most of which are related to development pressures and development <br />capability /suitability of a particular farm parcel and it's surrounding area. Each <br />factor is assigned a point value based on its relative importance to other factors. <br />2. Soil Assessment Criteria: All soils in Buncombe County have been rated <br />and placed into groups ranging from the most 'Productive farmland to the least <br />productive. A relative value has been determined for each group. The best group <br />is assigned the highest value and all other groups are assigned lower values. <br />To determine the total value of a given parcel, the values for the Soil Assessment and Site <br />Assessment criteria are added together. <br />Site Assessment Criteri a <br />The following information describes the criteria to be used in site evaluation in <br />administering the Conservation Agreement Program. Point values and the criteria for <br />allocation of ranking points are listed below. <br />1. Tract Size (weight - 100- points) <br />A score of one point per acre is given up to a maximum of 100 points. <br />2. Percentage of Tract in Agricultural and/or open Space Use (weight - 100 <br />points) <br />A score of one ranking point per percentage point of land in production or <br />open space compared to total tract size is given up to a maximum of 100 <br />points. <br />12 <br />