Market-based tool needed to preserve rural land

Seattle Post Intelligencer
By David Thyer and Bert Gregory

There is nothing like biting into a fresh, sweet, locally grown raspberry that you know came from a farm nearby, or taking your 4-year-old to see a field of purple tulips on a spring day in Skagit Valley, or experiencing a gift of beautiful Puyallup daffodils as the sun starts to shine. We need to protect those cherished Northwest memories for our children's children.

Transfer of Development Rights is a market-based management tool that redirects growth from rural areas into urban areas. It works by providing rural landowners with a financial incentive to protect their lands rather than develop them.

In turn, urban developers can pay rural landowners for their development rights in exchange for opportunities to build at a little greater density than zoning otherwise would allow. Ideally, this promotes lifestyle choices close to jobs, shopping, schools, transportation and other urban services.

A successful TDR program between the city of Seattle and King County recently expired. However, its purpose remains significant and ever more pressing. As Seattle's growth continues, such a tool would help to preserve natural lands, open space, working farms and forests for the benefit of all. The agreement should and could be renewed.

At stake are quality of life, the regional economy and our natural resources. From Puget Sound to working farms that supply produce to farmers markets to open wilderness, we are confronting a choice to preserve those treasured aspects of life in the Northwest, or allow them to disappear for good.

Such decisions can be smarter and more strategic if a TDR program remains in the equation. With TDR, we are able to address climate change, reduce vehicle miles traveled and work toward the lofty goal of conserving working farms and forests throughout our region.

Affordable housing is a major component of existing zoning regulations and no one wants to dilute that effort. Downtown Seattle currently exercises a 75/25 percent split in bonus options, where 75 percent of additional floor area must be earned through affordable housing, while the remaining 25 percent is earned through a menu of other options. Now is the time to explore the potential of TDR as a key menu item in that 25 percent.

The point is that TDRs work. Seattle and King County have cooperated in a TDR agreement for the past five years with several successful examples that have protected 840 acres of rural land. One example is Sugarloaf Mountain near Ravensdale in rural southeast King County. This 285-acre forest property in the city's watershed was destined to become 56 residential housing lots. Instead, King County acquired the development rights in 2000 and preserved the land for its value as fish and wildlife habitat and open space.

R.C. Hedreen purchased 31 of those TDR credits for $1 million for its Olive 8 project at Olive Way and Eighth Avenue. That helped preserve Sugarloaf Mountain, provided funds to enhance natural habitat and the county's open-space lands and replenished the TDR bank to preserve other salmon habitat and forestlands. In turn, Olive 8 will be the first green hotel/condominium in Seattle and will have one of the largest green roofs downtown.

Currently, three TDR towers are rising in Seattle's skyline through this workable, successful program. Mayor Greg Nickels and the City Council had the vision to adopt the Denny Triangle TDR agreement - continuing to support a TDR agreement ensures the city will serve as a model for successful and innovative land preservation and growth management for the rest of the country.

Our rare quality of life in the Northwest is integral to our identity. Incentive zoning is a key to preserving Seattle's livability, but the incentives need to serve the region as a whole. While asking citizens to live more densely, we have a moral and strategic obligation to balance the urban experience with preservation of natural areas, working forests, working farms and open spaces for our long-term enjoyment and well being.

Through a renewed TDR program, those magnificent tulips and raspberries from our region will be secured for children to see and taste throughout their lives.