THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501190187
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
The idea of using public money to preserve farmland may be new to Virginia Beach, but it has been working elsewhere for years.
Officials who help run preservation programs in Maryland and Pennsylvania say Beach farmers, environmentalists and city officials are right in asking the city to help keep farmers in business.
Daniel P. O'Connell, a financial adviser who helped set up an agricultural preservation program in Howard County, Md., said Tuesday that such programs can help prevent over-development while boosting the local tax base.
A group of Virginia Beach residents and officials has been working for more than a year to develop a plan to preserve farmland in the southern half of the city by paying farmers to agree not to develop their land. The logic is that by encouraging farming, the city will be helping one of its largest industries, slowing development that requires costly infrastructure and helping the environment by limiting use of the land.
O'Connell and Donna Mennitto, administrator of the Agricultural Land Preservation Program for Howard County, said farmers will gain so much that cities don't have to invest that heavily in such programs. They have used $9 million in public money to buy $58 million worth of development rights.
Virginia Beach officials have proposed investing between $3 million and $3.5 million a year for the next 30 years in purchasing such development rights.
Mennitto said farmers win because, essentially, they get paid to keep doing what they've always been doing. Instead of waiting until they're ready to leave the business to get cash, they can get money while still farming.
Mennitto believes the rest of her county also benefits from the rural feel farmers help to create and from the cost savings of not having to provide suburban services to the 97,000 acres that's still undeveloped.
Because Howard County is halfway between Baltimore and Washington, the pressure to develop land there is intense, she said. Her county started its agricultural preservation program in 1982 and beefed it up when officials realized they were still losing farmland ``at an alarming rate.''
Mennitto and Tom Daniels, director of the Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board, said they have extremely strong public support for their efforts.
Daniels said his program also helps balance the needs of his county's largest industry with development pressure.
Lancaster County, two hours west of Philadelphia, has an $850 million a year farming industry; its second-largest industry, tourism, is also dependent on that farmland.
But it's also a growing county: Its 425,000 population is expected to balloon to 550,000 early in the next century.
By preserving farmland, Daniels said, his county helps boost its tax base while allowing for growth.
Lancaster County gets $2 million a year from a state cigarette tax and uses $1 million in local taxes to support its preservation program. The county has bought development rights to 19,000 acres of farmland so far.
The Virginia Beach City Council now has to decide what advice to take from programs elsewhere: the Maryland and Pennsylvania programs use different methods of taxation to pay for their programs and they pay landowners in different ways. They have scheduled two meetings in February to discuss the proposal further.
Council member W.W. Harrison said he's waiting to see how the details of the plan are resolved before deciding whether to support it.
Council member Louis R. Jones said he's leaning toward it because of broader concerns. To him, it's really a question of infrastructure.
Can the city afford to build and maintain the roads, schools and sewer pipes that would be needed if the lower half of the city were developed? And, if it isn't developed, what can be done instead, Jones asked?
He would like to see some of that money used to bring the rest of the city's infrastructure up to standard.
``It may be good to use the backlog of revenue to deal with existing problems rather than create new needs,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: EFFORTS ELSEWHERE
Howard County, Md.
How much invested: $9 million since 1988; the state began its
program in 1978
How much land bought: Purchased 19,000 acres since 1978
Lancaster County, Pa.
How much invested: $3 million a year since 1989
How much land bought: 19,000 acres on 220 farms
OPINIONS LOCALLY
The City Council will hold two public hearings on the
agricultural reserve program at their regular meetings Feb. 14 and
Feb. 28. Residents are invited to express their views.
by CNB