Amid all the back-patting and “hoorays” for everybody involved in completing a two year effort to overhaul the St. Mary’s County Transferable Development Rights (TDR) program, a few ignored voices are giving a final effort to stop the changes.

If approved by the county commissioners in the next few weeks, the plan will only fatten the pockets of developers and the rich, while hurting every other current and future citizen, they say.

The negative comments from farmers and a respected 34-year veteran surveyor given to the Commissioners on Tuesday were in stark contrast to the parade of supporters that has marched past the desks of the commissioners and the planning commission.

At hand is a reworking of the TDR program, which was designed as a tool to preserve farmland and open space by providing landowners an opportunity to sell the development rights to their land instead of selling out to a property developer.

 

Bill McKissick, a local attorney heavily involved in the creation of the proposal talks to a citizen about the program– The Bay Net photo by Sean Rice

But the plan has not been working, as a majority of the new housing developments in the last few years have gone directly were officials are trying to keep them out – in the Rural Preservation District (RPD). The problem lies with the cost of land in development areas and the complicated TDR program is easily skirted by determined developers.

Officials have been scratching their heads on how to make the program work correctly, which should steer development to the Lexington Park Development District and other targeted development zones. A St. Mary’s Chamber of Commerce committee took on the task of devising an overhaul plan.

Under the current plan, landowners can sell the TDRs from their land at the rate of 1 TDR per 3 acres of “developable land”; but the rules require a survey or geological review to determine which sections of land are developable, and where those TDRs can come from.

After the TDRs are pulled off a piece of land, that tract of land is banned from ever being developed.

TDRs are purchased by developers who are required to buy them when they choose to squeeze more houses into a project in the development zones, or to build a subdivision in the RPD. A single Transferable Development Right sells currently for approximately $12,000.

A major problem that is not address at all in the proposal is the fact that TDRs can be used to build subdivisions in the Rural Preservation District.

Citizen suggestions to solve the issue by simply restricting where TDRs can be used have fallen on deaf ears.

The chamber proposal aims to simplify is process by removing the requirement of determining what are the “sensitive” non-developable areas in the tract of land, and just setting a flat rate of 1 TDR available per each 5 acres of land.

The fundamental problem with the program has not been addressed, say opponents of the overhaul. Why would a landowner with 100 acres, for example, sell the right to develop 20 acres of their land for about $45,000, when they could sell that property outright for 10 times that price?

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