Trends In Transfers Of Development Rights

"Nygren and his allies think they've hit upon a formula for success — not by stopping growth but by channeling it into a few areas through a strategy that would preserve most of the surrounding woodlands... The key to the hill country plan is an unusual legal practice Nygren is pushing — transfer of development rights. It allows landowners to sell the right to build houses on their farms or ranches. In return for permanently preserving the land, they can get tax benefits and keep living on the property. Builders, in turn, buy the development rights. But instead of developing the farmland, they can transfer the number of homes they could have built there to nearby land where zoning allows more intensive development."