January, 2002
Group Hears Advice On Land Preservation
By Jennifer L. Berghom
Sedalia – The Bedford Citizens for Land Preservation received some expert advice Tuesday on how to develop a land preservation strategy.
Ridge Schuyler, director of The Nature Conservancy of Virginia’s Piedmont Program, spoke to a crowd of roughly 50 residents at the Sedalia Center about what options Bedford County has for land preservation.
Schuyler said it is important for localities to plan their growth because it can get out of control very easily.
“I'm not here to tell you what to become but I can tell you how to become what you want,” Schuyler told the group.
He cited the immense population growth in Fairfax County and said the reason Northern Virginia became to populated was because the localities there did not plan.
Virginia’s population has increased by 50 percent since 1970, Schuyler said, and is the 12th largest state in population.
Population growth, he said, “is coming over like a wave and before you know it you’re living in Fairfax.”
Schuyler said a locality’s comprehensive plan should be the vision of the community, but it is only a plan and can be disregarded by actions local officials may take.
“(Plans) can all be changed by the Board of Supervisors’ decisions. While you might have nifty zoning in place, five years down the road it could change,” he said.
Schuyler focused on purchase of development rights (PDR) programs, conservation easements and land use districts as methods to control population growth and increased speculative land values (how much the land would cost if used for purposes other than farmland). These methods, which stem from the state’s Open Space Land Act, allow localities to purchase property rights from landowners and place restrictions on farmland.
Every landowner owns a set of property rights in addition to the right to own land. These other rights include the right to develop the land, the right to subdivide the property and the right to mine the property. PDR programs allow localities to purchase these rights so that the speculative value of the land stays low.
“The ultimate control of property is to be the owner of it,” he said.
Conservation easements are more restrictive than PDRs, Schuyler said, because they limit the landowner’s property rights.
County Attorney Carl Boggess, who attended the meeting, said afterward that there are many options the county can take to preserve land when the time comes.
There are many areas throughout the county that need to be preserved, he said, including the Kelso area.
Boggess said he hopes the residents will become more aware of the land preservation issues through their self-education. The group also heard program reports from its three subcommittees and announced it is seeking to become a not-for-profit entity.
