Friday, October 17, 2008

County approves first TDR development

Transfer-of-development-rights program allows developers to increase density of projects


By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

The Blaine County Commission on Thursday approved a 24-lot subdivision south of Bellevue that will be the first to take advantage of the county's budding transfer-of-development-rights program.

Called the Maybelle Hill subdivision, the south-county development will include 24 new lots ranging in size from 1 acre to 4.54 acres, as well as a 56.66-acre conservation parcel. Proposed by landowner Gary Farrington, the project is located off Glendale Road about 3.6 miles west of state Highway 75.

Underlying zoning for the 117-acre property would have allowed only five lots to be developed.

However, under the deal Farrington has reached with the county, he will purchase development rights from nearby landowners to the south in the Bellevue Triangle that will allow him to increase the development density on his land by 19 additional lots.

The county's TDR program allows landowners in specified areas of the county—called sending areas—to sell their rights to develop their land to landowners in other areas that the county has identified—called receiving areas—that the county considers appropriate for denser subdivision development.

The only stumbling block that county officials ran into while considering the Maybelle Hill subdivision application was a lack of available development rights that landowners in the sending areas have placed into the program, Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman said. Thus far, only four landowners have applied and had their development rights certified.

Twenty development rights have been certified so far. Because of this, Bowman said, Farrington would have been at a pricing disadvantage if he went to purchase 19 of those at once.

So for now, county officials have approved a deal that will allow Farrington to purchase five development rights, thereby allowing him to immediately develop 10 lots, including the five lots he could already develop under existing zoning. For every lot he builds above those first 10 lots, Farrington will have to purchase an additional development right from landowners in the TDR sending area.

By doing this, Farrington is expected to be purchasing the development rights in a more competitive environment.

"The market has not been established yet," he said.




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