All-day seminar to explore development alternatives
The Daily Inter Lake
An all-day seminar on transferrable development rights and other options for protecting farmland and open space will be held Friday in Kalispell.
The seminar, "Common Ground-Common Future: Planning for Working Farms, Managed Forests and Clean Water in Flathead County," takes place at the WestCoast Kalispell Center Hotel from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The morning session features several presentations about agricultural opportunities and water quality.
The afternoon session will be devoted to a discussion of transferrable development rights. It begins at noon, with a lunch address by keynote speaker Rick Pruetz, a planning consultant who has written extensively on this subject.
Transferrable development rights are a market-based tool that help communities redirect growth away from sensitive areas - such as farmland, private timberland, critical wildlife habitat or historical areas - toward areas that are more suitable for dense development.
As in other high-growth areas, elected officials in the Flathead have been reluctant to simply prohibit growth in sensitive areas, in part because it prevents landowners from realizing the full value of their property.
Transferrable development rights, by contrast, give owners the option to voluntarily restrict development on their land. In exchange, they receive a transferrable right that could be sold, helping them recoup some or all of the lost value.
Developers who purchase these rights then would earn a density bonus for building in more suitable areas - allowing them to create more subdivision lots than would otherwise be permitted.
Essentially, the development rights create a mechanism by which developers building in one area help pay to protect land in more sensitive areas. As long as the density bonus they receive in doing so enables them to create enough new lots to offset the cost of the development rights, the market for transferrable rights should be viable.
After lunch, Pruetz will lead a panel discussion on how to establish a transferrable development rights program, including how to determine which areas should be protected and which areas are suitable for higher-density development.
The cost of Friday's seminar is $15, including lunch, or $18 at the door.
To register for the seminar, send the registration fee, contact information and any dietary restrictions to P.O. Box 771, Kalispell, MT 59903.
Call Citizens for a Better Flathead at 756-8993.