THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611010207
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: ON THE STREET
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: 67 lines
It's a case of pay now or pay later - and if you pay later you'll pay through the nose.
That's the municipal slant on the Agricultural Reserve Program, which was launched officially last Tuesday by the City Council.
Council members unanimously approved an agreement to pay two farm families a total of $2.74 million not to develop their combined 581 acres into mega-housing tracts for the next 25 years.
The owners may still farm and live on their land, but they can't develop it. And while they're free to sell the land, the buyer also would be bound to not develop it.
About 38 more farm owners are considering the program, and they have land holdings totaling 3,500 acres, according to the city's Agriculture Department. And there are between 30,000 and 32,000 acres of farm land south of Indian River Road that could be placed in the program over the next 30 years.
The projected cost of the agricultural reserve program over 30 years is an estimated $87 million. That's a big chunk of change in anybody's league and it raised some questions from Virginia Beach insurance man John W. Wilson.
Wilson wanted to know three things: what taxpayers are getting for the money, how the city arrived at its compensation figures for farm owners and how many rural lots actually would be removed from residential development on the land accepted Tuesday in the program.
Council members had these answers:
The program was adopted to prevent continued suburban sprawl into the undeveloped and rural part of the city. The cost of extending municipal services southward to accommodate the sprawl would be astronomical.
Right now the average Virginia Beach home valued at roughly $250,000 or less does not generate enough in taxes to pay for those services, i.e. schools, roads, sewerage, water lines, police and fire protection and trash collection.
Compensation to farmers who enter the land reserve program is based on the prevailing market value of their land and the market values are determined by land appraisals.
Under current zoning, landowners could have put up to 59 homes on their 581 acres. But council members expressed concern Tuesday that future councils might allow greater densities in the rural area.
In the end, argued Vice Mayor William D. Sessoms Jr., ``We will save the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.''
Councilwoman Barbara M. Henley offered a simple cost comparison scenario.
The total yearly tab for the Agricultural Reserve Program will be $3.5 million over the next 25 years, she said. But the cost of building and operating just one high school over the same period would be higher.
For example, she said: ``The new Ocean Lakes High School costs $4.5 million every year. That's $2.5 million in debt service and $2 million in operating costs.''
Multiply those figures by eight or 10 new schools over three decades and you're geometrically increasing the burden on taxpayers without even factoring in the expense of new roads, sewerage or water lines and other services.
Wilson said he agreed with council's plan to halt suburban sprawl, but argued that it could become unmanageable and unfundable once farmers realize how generous the city's payments are for development rights. ``We'll be right back where we started,'' he said.
Not necessarily, council members replied. Compensation will vary from tract to tract and not all applicants will be accepted into the program.
In the end, said Henley, the city will have controlled growth in the southern end of the city, preserved the agricultural industry in that same area and preserved a commodity valued highly by most city residents - open space. by CNB