Using the Rural Lands Stewardship Program for the Protection of Wildlife and Habitat

• THE RURAL LAND STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIESPresented by Secretary Tom Pelham, June 29, 2007
• Florida Department of Community Affairs RURAL LAND STEWARDSHIP RULE DEVELOPMENT 

OVERVIEW

(Section 163.3177(11)(d), F.S., the Rural Land Stewardship Areas Program, RLSA) -  The Rural Lands Stewardship is an incentive-based system that encourages the voluntary preservation and private stewardship of natural resources, retention of rural uses and agriculture, and accommodates economic growth and diversification in a sustainable rural character.  

A cooperative effort amongst stakeholders to devise a ground-breaking solution to this issue resulted in the Rural Lands Stewardship Act which was codified into law in 2004 as F.S. 163.3177(11)(d), after first being launched as a pilot program in 2001. The Rural Lands Stewardship Program (RLSP) provides landowners with economic incentives for the responsible stewardship of rural lands, both to protect environmental features and beneficial agricultural uses and to steer development to more appropriate settings.

These economic incentives are achieved by assigning a market value to the uses and features of a property that are deemed by agreement of stakeholders to have public value. The RLSP provides landowners with a means of obtaining this enhanced value from market place transactions in return for protecting natural or community resources while transferring certain rights of use and entitlements to another parcel of property where development can suitably take place. This is accomplished through assigning transferable land use credits, whereby private landowners are provided equity for their natural or community resources. Some of the public value features that are protected as a result include wetlands, endangered species and their habitats, recharge areas for underground aquifers, open space, and wildlife corridors. Participation in this program is entirely voluntary to landowners within the overlay zone.

Regarding RLSP, Florida law (F.S. 163.3177 (11)(d)(2)) provides, in part that “[i]t is the intent of the Legislature that rural land stewardship areas be used to further the following broad principles of rural sustainability: restoration and maintenance of the economic value of rural land; control of urban sprawl; identification and protection of ecosystems, habitats, and natural resources; promotion of rural economic activity; maintenance of the viability of Florida's agricultural economy; and protection of the character of rural areas of Florida." The act states that rural land stewardship areas may be multi-county, must consist of an area of at least 10,000 acres and "be located outside of municipalities and established urban growth boundaries, and shall be designated by plan amendment" [163.3177 11(d)4].

What makes the RLSP unique from other land conservation programs is its holistic scope in which conservation and development are planned in conjunction with one another with active participation and buy in from landowners. The program enlists the participation of private landowners to facilitate the end result of small towns, complete with all necessary infrastructure and services, developed within an overall setting of private agricultural and forest lands. The RLSP is also very different from “Transfer of Development Rights” (TDR) or conservation easement programs, which only give value for one land use layer – the residential layer. The RLSP provides landowners with values for multiple land uses that increase in value if natural or community resources are present.

The aim of this strategy is to prevent the kind of development that is all too common - an uncontrolled, sprawling series of strip malls unconnected to existing infrastructure, raising property taxes and resulting in traffic, congestion, and an overall decreased quality of life for the area. Additionally, planning development and conservation together can allow for the provision of wildlife corridors and decreased fragmentation of habitat.

MECHANICS

The RLSP sets up a limited trading program within the designated stewardship area that provides landowners within Stewardship Sending Areas (SSAs) valuable credits for defined resources in exchange for giving up specific uses of the land and placing a conservation easement on the land to protect the land in perpetuity. In order to build under the RLSA, developers must petition to have a given area designated as a Stewardship Receiving Area (SRA) and purchase a specific number of credits per unit from SSA landowners. This allows owners of natural amenities to participate in the economic development of the land suitable for conversion. In fact, the more valuable the natural ecosystem is – or can be restored to be – the more the owner of that land can participate in the economic benefits of development.

Assigning Values and Designating Stewardship Sending and Receiving Areas

A stakeholder consensus-based process is used to assign and apportion natural resource value within an RLSA. Land within the designated RLSP overlay zone is carefully analyzed through remotely-sensed imagery, field work and research. The resultant data are then assimilated into a (Geographic Information System) GIS-based attribute matrix and index system. Through a series of analyses, all land is scored with a value that is based on Natural or Community Resources Indices representing the magnitude of resources present, and then modeling is used to determine which areas score higher vs. lower in overall resource values. Based on this analysis, those areas with higher natural resource scores are likely more suitable areas for SSAs and those areas with lower natural resource scores are likely more suitable for SRAs.

In Collier County, land becomes designated as a SSA or SRA upon petition by a property owner to Collier County seeking such a designation and the adoption of a resolution by the Board of County Commissioners granting the designation. Land proposed for SRA designation must meet certain suitability criteria as set forth by the County and the petition must include an SRA master plan which details the proposed development, and provides an assurance that adequate infrastructure will be provided. In order to protect adjacent landowners, SRA developments are required to have acquired the minimum number of credits at the time of application for designation, and they must create a buffer of lower density development along the edge when adjacent lands are of a significantly lower density, such as agriculture. This serves to prevent potential conflict between adjacent land uses. Requiring that developers obtain all necessary credits prior to the commencement of construction serves to protect the interests of area citizens from piecemeal developments that do not account for their impact on surrounding areas.

Once a petition for the creation of an SSA is approved, the County then assigns the appropriate number of credits to the land. Transferable land use credits (stewardship credits) are the currency of the RLSP. These credits are assigned to parcels within the Stewardship Sending Areas by grouping currently allowed land uses into multiple layers of discreet use: residential uses, mineral uses, recreational uses, and agricultural uses. Each land use layer is given a base credit value; these values reflect the percentage of value each land use layer contributes to the current market value of the property. “Public values” (such as natural resources and environmental amenities that do not have quantifiable market values) are then factored in as multiplier values.

A Stewardship Credits formula calculates the credits assigned to each acre within an SSA based on the removal of incompatible land uses (such as residential or earth mining) through a conservation easement or similar agreement. Each natural resource that is found on the property is assigned a multiplier value based on its importance to the local community, as determined through a priority-setting workshop composed of local stakeholders. These multiplier values are then used to increase the market value of each land use layer on each part of the property where one or more natural resources and/or public values are found (for example, the presence of an endangered species could be assigned a multiplier value of 1.5 which would increase the property’s value 1.5 times more than its normal market value).

In Collier County, stewardship credits are exchanged for additional residential and non-residential entitlements in an SRA on a per acre basis at the rate of eight stewardship credits per gross acre. This allows for an increase in the density of development within an SRA and use of innovative planning techniques such as clustering of homes that leaves more open space and saves on infrastructure costs.

Increased value of land is derived by selling or pledging the public value credits assigned to public values (within a designated Sending Area) to another property owner who needs these credits to satisfy the criteria necessary to allow development on another parcel (within a designated Receiving Area). Hence, the owner of a parcel with features that provide a benefit to the public stands to make more money by keeping the property and agreeing to retain the features that provide value to the public rather than simply selling the property for development. Moreover, the same market incentives work to direct development to more suitable locations.

BENEFITS

The RLSP can have advantages to government, developers, landowners, and the environment. The RLSP is a voluntary program, so landowners only opt in when they choose to do so.

Benefits to the Environment

The program utilizes market rewards as incentives to protect environmentally sensitive lands, at very little or no cost to taxpayers and without tapping into public land acquisition and management funds. Market place incentives are utilized to promote innovative planning, more compact settlement patterns, and the use of “green technologies” to reduce environmental impacts. By directing development into discreet, clustered settlement patterns surrounded by extensive areas of farms and open space, this program accommodates development while preventing sprawl. The program extends protection over entire regions, rather than protecting land on a piecemeal, parcel-by-parcel basis. This aids in the preservation of large contiguous tracts of habitat through which species can migrate and live. The program directs incompatible land uses away from critical habitat and other important natural resources, and removes the incentive to degrade natural resources using regulatory loopholes.

Benefits to Developers

The program results in reduced up-front capital and carrying costs for development on the front end. One the back end, developers enjoy an increased certainty that their development proposals will be approved if the RLSP’s development criteria are followed. Additionally, there is a reduced amount of time and costs in obtaining the necessary permits and approvals if all the RLSP’s development criteria are met. There is also a reduction in impact fees and infrastructure costs due to compact settlement patterns.

Benefits to Landowners

Under this program, environmental and regulatory liabilities – such as the presence of wetlands or an endangered species – are turned into assets that actually MULTIPLY the market value of a property. The program also overcomes the handicap of location, and reduces competition and conflicts of interest between individual property owners. Property lines are erased in the planning phase so that developments can be situated in the best locations and assets from multiple landowners can be pooled, without competition and conflicts, and without the interests of one landowner causing costs or liabilities for another landowner. The program prevents premature conversion of agricultural land to other uses by providing an economic incentive to retain agriculture, and by creating a new source of revenue to maintain viability of agricultural operations. In this way, agriculture can be maintained while accommodating population growth. The overall program is calibrated such that substantial areas of agricultural lands cannot be developed.

Benefits to the Public

Many of the benefits that are enjoyed by the public are the same kinds of benefits enjoyed by other stakeholders. As mentioned earlier, the program allows for the protection of habitat and natural resources without drawing funds from public land acquisition programs, allowing for more land overall to be protected. Since the only public cost incurred is in planning assistance, large, contiguous tracts of land, water and environmentally susceptible areas can be protected all at one time and at a public cost of as little as $2 to $3 per acre. Because the RLSP encourages compact mixed use developments, it creates settlement patterns that generate a surplus in revenues for municipal operations and schools. Additionally, these compact settlement patterns result in reduced impact fees, reduced levels of assessments required for property tax rates, reduced automobile dependence and commute times, reduced infrastructure costs and reduced environmental impacts.

The program offers creative ways to generate revenues in return for maintaining natural ecosystems and open space. The program allows for preservation without interfering with or undermining local property tax revenues, and uses development to pay for natural resource protection while allowing for the continuation of farming, ranching, and timber land operations.