Greg Bowen

A habit of putting good ideas to work

Greg Bowen has had a long career in farmland protection. He administered the Calvert County, Md. farmland preservation program before becoming planning director in 2005. He oversaw creation of the purchase as well as transfer of development rights programs and an installment purchase program beginning in the 1990s. FPR spoke with Greg May 6, 2009.

FPR: Greg, Calvert County has done some innovative things for farmland preservation, although I admit I haven’t kept up recently. Could you just summarize what the county does?

BOWEN: The foundation is our transfer of development rights program. That one, we got the enabling authority back in 1977. It really didn’t take off in any big way until the 1980s. Although we continue to tweak it, I guess it’s been our most successful tool over time. Then in 1992 the county commissioners added to that the purchase of development rights program. It works off the TDR program. The commissioners buy up to 10 TDRs from willing sellers on an application basis.

FPR: And you call that your purchase and retirement program…

BOWEN: Right. And then in 1999 we patterned an installment purchase program off of Harford County’s
program and we call that our leveraging and retirement program, but its basically the same kind of installment purchase Harford has. So those are the county programs, we also use MALPF, Rural Legacy and some MET easements.

FPR: You say TDR is your most successful program. How is it set up and what makes it successful?

BOWEN: That one has evolved very much over the years. We have refined the sending areas and receiving areas and I think it was helpful in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the county commissioners were looking at zoning changes. The fact that we had a working TDR program helped sell to the farming community that we weren’t affecting the equity in their land. At that time, the county commissioners, with two zoning changes, reduced the base density in the sending areas to one house per 20 acres and also changed the density in the receiving areas, requiring more development rights in order to achieve maximum allowable density.

FPR: That was important.

BOWEN: Yes. And that’s worked very well. It actually stimulated development rights sales from 2000 on. We actually got to a point where there seemed to be a shortage of TDRs, around 2005, but of course all of that has changed a bit in the last year…. we’ve seen fewer development rights sales, probably the lowest since the early 1980s.

FPR: Tell me more about your sending areas and receiving areas. How well defined are they?

BOWEN: The sending areas- we established priority preservation areas with the adoption of our 2004 comprehensive plan, and about 55,000 acres. The receiving areas are the county’s town centers, which are also priority funding areas [under Maryland’s smart growth law] and our residential district, which surrounds the town centers, are not very large. I think we have less than 2000 acres, undeveloped and eligible in the residential district. The third area is rural community districts, which are outside the priority preservation areas and priority funding areas, but we still allow for say, one-acre lots with TDR.

FPR: I know your county was fearing a big influx of population… has that come about, and has the TDR done what you wanted it to do?

BOWEN: The reason for the major zoning density changes in ‘99 and 2003 was to meet a build-out goal the commissioners set up. In 1999 they asked us to look at what the maximum build-out would be based on current zoning. And we estimated that to be 54,000 households.

FPR: Oh yes, I remember that.

BOWEN: And the commissioners, taking a look at our road system, our aquifer system and our goal to retain
rural character decided that was way too much growth to accommodate. So they made the first zoning density cut, (to 44,000 households and at that time we were at 22,500) and then they revisited that issue in 2003 and made additional cuts, down to 37,000 households. But that worked very well with the TDR program, to maintain equity in the countryside.

FPR: When you downzoned, did you not have a big outcry from the farming community?

BOWEN: Actually, we had lots of strong comments, but it was split pretty much down the middle. There were property owners, farmers at this point, who said they thought TDRs were dealing with the equity issues and they wanted to see their farm communities preserved and then there were property owners in the farm community who were upset over the zoning density changes, but it was not a consensus by any means.

FPR: And how are things now? Do you get feedback on it now, people complaining they can’t do what they want to do?

BOWEN: Certainly at the subdivision stage there are always going to be questions like ‘why can’t I get more lots on my property?’ But I think overall I think there has been general acceptance and I think that the zoning density changes have not affected property values… I would say the economy in the last year and a half has affected property values….

FPR: Yes.

BOWEN: We’ve looked as recently as 2005.

FPR: That would have been a good time to look.

BOWEN: We saw that property values only escalated over the time period. The combination of when you
tighten the supply and when you have a very strong market for TDRs you are only going to see property values increase from 1999 to 2005.

FPR: Right. It’s been very interesting to watch this, with all the dire predictions about how downzoning would devalue land… not quite how it happened.

BOWEN: No. We would see that when all the TDRs were sold off a property that the land would still sell for up to $10,000 an acre. And in 1999, before the zoning changes, market values for land sold for development weren’t even $10,000 an acre.

FPR: Tell me about your Leverage and Retirement Program.

BOWEN: Its a good tool to have in our pocket. You know, people who live in the farm community and wanting to do something with their land to protect it, there are lots of different interests and needs out there. For some the PAR [Purchase and Retirement] fund works very well – its the sale of a small number of TDRs, but it helps deal with a bad year for some people. The leveraging program is a nice program for people looking to retire and getting an interest payment each year, plus knowing you get the lump sum of easement value at the end of the term, between 10 and 20 years… its just a nice tool for a lot of property owners.

FPR: Have you had many takers?

BOWEN: Absolutely. Certainly as much money as the county commissioners have made available each year has always been used.

FPR: Would you say your IPA program is more popular than your TDR program?

BOWEN: If you look at the numbers, we still have more TDR sales than PDR sales. But it depends on what property owners you’re looking for.

FPR: Well, I’ve already kept you for 12 minutes… I’ll leave it at that unless you have something to add….

BOWEN: Only that I continue to enjoy your publication because it only takes just a couple really good ideas to make a publication worth my while. You had two very good articles in the last issue – we are looking now as much at how to keep farming as an industry vital, as just preserving land, and we’ve got a sustainable agriculture workgroup down here from Soil Conservation District, Md. Extension Service, Planning and Zoning and the local health department, and so we’re looking for ideas – you often look at…um …

FPR: Food system development…

BOWEN: Food system development. So keep writing those good stories.

FPR: I will, Greg, and thanks a lot, I appreciate that…. have a good afternoon.