Unraveling the Mysteries of Purchase of Development Rights (PDR), Conservation Easements, Tax Implications
Presented by Saratoga PLAN and Saratoga County Planning Department
Tuesday November 17, 2009 7:00-9:00pm
Saratoga County Building #5 Auditorium 50 West High Street Ballston Spa, NY 12020
Come learn about Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) and how to conserve your farmland. Maria Trabka from Saratoga PLAN and Jaime L. O’Neill from Saratoga County Planning Department will explain the mechanics of state, county, and federal funding PDR programs and how owners of farmland can receive compensation for protecting their land. There will also be a guest speaker who has been through the process of protecting his land utilizing the State funding program and will speak frankly about the experience.
You will learn about:
• how the process works and how to receive individualized, confidential consultations when considering whether you want to apply to sell your development rights
• the criteria that these funding programs use when evaluating PDR proposals
• conservation easements that are used to “extinguish” development rights after they have been sold
• the mechanics of the funding programs and how they can be matched together
• tax benefits and liabilities for the sale, donation, or “bargain sale” of development rights
PDR funding programs are competitive and are best suited to viable, commercial agricultural operations producing crops on high quality soils which are likely to remain in agricultural production in the future. They are also applicable to owners of rental lands when a leaseholder is applying to conserve the “home farm.”
Maria Trabka is the Executive Director of Saratoga PLAN, a not-for-profit conservation organization working throughout Saratoga County to conserve land and to help communities with open space planning. She joined PLAN after 3 years with the Agricultural Stewardship Association, where she oversaw PDR programs for Washington and Rensselaer counties, and 10 years with The Nature Conservancy. Over this time, Ms. Trabka has secured $19M used to protect over 8,000 acres of farmland and working forests.
Jaime L. O’Neill, is a planner with Saratoga County who has been working for over 8 years in Saratoga County on farmland protection as well as Agricultural Districts program and Open Space planning across Saratoga County. Ms. O’Neill has leveraged over $2.5 Million dollars in farmland protection funding from New York State Farmland Protection Grant Program for Saratoga County to purchase the Development Rights to several farms in the county and serves as staff to the County’s Land Preservation Committee who oversees the County’s grant program that has invested $3.8 Million dollars in farmland and open space conservation to date.