Polk seminar tells how land stewardship works

By ABBY SLUTSKY
News Chief staff
PolkOnline.com
May 13, 2006

WINTER HAVEN - Local landowners, ranchers, government officials, environmentalists and developers had an opportunity to learn about the way other counties, both in Florida and elsewhere, have used rural lands stewardship and transfer of development rights programs to preserve natural resources while still planning for growth.

On Friday, the Polk Land Stewardship Alliance hosted a workshop at Nora Mayo Hall during which experts explained both the programs and how they have benefited the areas that have used them.

The Polk Land Stewardship Alliance was formed in response to needs identified by Polk Vision, said Marian Ryan, co-chair of the alliance.

The workshop, Ryan said, was aimed at presenting the programs and how they might shape the county's future.

Ernie Cox, an attorney with Gunster Yoakley & Steward, was instrumental in developing the Adams Ranch Stewardship in St. Lucie County.

One of the main reasons for going with stewardship instead of just having the government purchase all of the rural land is that when government buys land, it doesn't pay local taxes, Cox said.

Properties owned by private individuals or businesses, he said, still pay local taxes.

Rural Lands Stewardship, such as was used in St. Lucie County, "is an incentive-based system that encourages the voluntary preservation and private stewardship of natural resources, retention of rural uses and agriculture, and accommodates economic growth and diversification in a sustainable rural character."

At the most general level, stewardship programs allow landowners to earn credits based on the more environmentally valuable their land is.

Starting with the highest land-use, Residential, the landowners can begin removing layers of permitted uses to earn more credits.

For example, if an area of land is zoned for residential use and the most a landowner can get per acre is one credit, every "layer" of zoning they voluntarily remove earns them a percentage of the single credit.

Giving up residential uses, conditional uses, earth mining uses, row crops and pasture uses brings the landowner closer to having the full credit.

The landowner can then sell the credits earned to developers who can in turn have more flexibility in developing a less-environmentally important area.

"The value of development entitlements drives the market value of stewardship credits and therefore drives the protection of natural resources, agriculture and heritage," Cox said.

"If you want someone to do something, give them an incentive," Cox said.

By putting a dollar value on keeping rural lands preserved, he said, the landowners will be more willing to keep their land natural.

Landowners can also earn credits based on the type of resources on their land, such as wildlife and vegetation.

With stewardship, said Bruce Johnson of Wilson Miller, a planning firm, the environmentalists, developers and landowners are given a sense of certainty about the future.

"Everybody knows what they're going to get up front," Johnson said.

The first step toward getting that certainty is to agree on the data, he said.

Once all of the participants agree that the data is correct, they can move on to giving the different resources a credit value.

While there is no program in place resembling stewardship in Polk County, it may be something that could be put into place in the future.

But stewardship is not the only option available.

Transfer of development rights (TDR) programs have also been used in parts of the country.

Jim Nicholas, of the University of Florida College of Law, said that while stewardship is generally preferable to TDR programs, they are applicable in different situations.

"There are 300 TDR programs in the United States today. Maybe 10 work," Nicholas said. "It's not easy to do. It's not easy in a policy sense, a community sense."

Because of controversy surrounding TDRs, Nicholas said, the programs have gotten a bad rap.

"Most local governments will not do what it takes to have a successful TDR program," Nicholas said.

The programs that do work, he said, are based on adopting agricultural zoning, enforcing minimum lot sizes in agriculturally zoned areas, providing for "infill" development in the urban areas and purchasing conservation easements on agricultural land from general funds.

Other policies that have resulted in successful TDR programs, he said, are refusing to expand roads within and into rural areas, refusing to extend water and sewer into rural areas and adopting, enforcing and defending a Transferable Development Rights program.

Though neither stewardship nor TDR programs have been proposed for Polk County, the workshop's organizers asked attendees to begin to consider what would be the best method for managing growth while preserving agriculture and natural resources.

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