It’s haying season in Carson Valley. A discussion on preserving the county’s agricultural lands goes to planning commissioners on Tuesday.
One of the tools used to preserve agricultural space in Douglas County is to transfer development rights off the fields to locations closer to more urban development.
Douglas County planning commissioners will hear a presentation 1 p.m. today at the Douglas County Courthouse on the program from consultant Wood Rogers.
The program is designed to protect ranching, farming and other agricultural activities in Carson Valley.
According to Community Development, 4,065 acres of agricultural land has certified conservation easements out of 169,117 acres zoned for 19-acre parcels in agricultural and forested land.
The mechanism consists of sending areas on agricultural land and receiving areas in regions around currently developed areas.
When a property owner files an application to transfer development rights, the county reviews and confirms that the correct bonuses are applied, according to a presentation.
It’s not until the deed on the property to be used as an open space easement that it is certified.
The price of development rights from sending areas is determined by the market.
“Sending areas have little incentive to take part in the TDR program at this time,” according to the presentation. “There are a limited number of major property owners in sending and receiving areas.”
In an example presented to planning commissioners, 100 acres of land would be worth $700,000 for 140 development rights, but worth $3 million if the land is sold.
Because the transactions are privately negotiated, decision makers rarely know where development rights are coming from until after an approval.
A score of officials from a variety of groups participated in a technical advisory committee to discuss potential fixes for the program.
Among the first phase recommendations being presented on Tuesday are to establish an online registry and program information and educational outreach.
Recommendations for the second phase would include infrastructure assessments as part of the 2026 master plan update, consider increasing density or density bonuses, reach out to the public to find out areas at a high priority for conservation and limiting floodplain development.
A study looked at the possibility of requiring one right for every new housing unit in the county. Concerns are that would encourage sprawl into areas where the lands is cheapest and won’t protect sensitive areas or preserve farmland.
After hearing from planning commissioners on Tuesday, the consultant plans to present a report to planning commissioners in September and provide a final report to county commissioners in October.
A longtime critic of the program, Gardnerville Ranchos resident Terry Burnes said the program may actually increase new development.
In 2023, during the discussion of a project along the Ranchos’ eastern flank, Burnes pointed out that the 33 acres of land would have allowed one home instead of the 85 allowed by transferring development rights.
“The TDR program basically seeks the preservation of open space by enabling the transfer of new development from the rural area to the urban area of the county,” he said. “It also multiplies the amount of development in the process through density bonuses designed to make such transfers attractive to rural land owners and urban developers.”
He pointed out that the trade-off is preventing a half-dozen homes on an agricultural site somewhere in the county’s rural areas.
Burnes, a former Bay Area planner, said in a Sept. 20, 2023, column appearing in The Record-Courier that Douglas County’s TDR program approaches a 15-1 density in exchange for preserving land that might not be developable.
Development agreements for Virginia Ranch and Park Ranch holdings, which both require the transfer of development rights, go before Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday.