Stuck in the MUDs: Why Texas needs a Purchase of Development Rights program for farmland

By Wylie Harris

Aired on KEOS 89.1 FM Community Radio for the Brazos Valley

November 13, 2003

 

To listen on live audio go to:

http://www.rtis.com/touchstone/tsradio/static/cd31-16.html

 

 

The economy may be dragging, but if you’re talking people or land, it’s boom times in Texas.  The state’s population grew by over 20 % during the ‘90s, and there could be twice as many of us by 2040.  And it’s not just that there are more people – we’re taking up more space, too.  Since the 1970s, we’ve lost 3 million acres of rural land, and we’re losing it faster and faster all the time.  Texas farms and ranches disappeared under parking lots and subdivisions twice as fast in the ‘90s as in the ‘80s – to the tune of one acre every 2 minutes.

 

This problem isn’t limited to the expanding edges of cities.   Municipal utility districts, or MUDs, are springing up in rural areas all over Texas, leapfrogging far out from the state’s major metropolitan centers.

 

Sprawl may seem like a problem only for the few small towns and farms that are enveloped.  But when rural lands change to subdivisions, everyone loses – everyone but the developer, who goes home with a fat check and lets the locals – and taxpayers all over the state – deal with the problems. New residents need roads to get to and from work, and all that pavement adds up.  It spells thicker traffic for newcomers and oldtimers alike.  It lets less water into the soil and funnels more of it into creeks and rivers, increasing erosion and reducing both the amount and quality of available water.  It fragments wildlife habitat, threatening populations of both endangered species and economically valuable wild game. 

 

Speaking of economics, developers pitch their projects to local governments as a property-tax windfall.  The higher taxes on residential property, they say, bring more revenues into city and county coffers.  What they’re not saying is that those revenues won’t be enough to cover the costs of the additional infrastructure and services.  Nationwide, residential properties cost local governments an average of $1.15 for every dollar of property taxes they pay.  For rural lands, the figure is 37 cents.

 

Local governments and rural residents often feel helpless to stop the loss of their rural lands to suburban development, but it’s not inevitable.  One solution is a purchase of development rights program.  This gives landowners the option of selling the rights to develop their property. The buyers – usually land trusts or governmental agencies – are responsible for ensuring that the property is not developed, but instead preserved for agricultural use or wildlife habitat.  The landowner can stay on the farm and retains all other rights, but pays taxes only on the agricultural value of the land.  Twenty-four states all over the country have adopted PDR programs, stopping the loss of rural land and open space both at cities’ edges and in the countryside.  These programs cost about $20 per person – a fraction of the $300 per head that Texas spends building new highways each year.  A bill to create a PDR program for Texas was introduced in the last legislative session, but never reached the floor.  To find out how to give Texas the PDR program it so badly needs, start with the American Farmland Trust’s website at www.farmland.org/texas.

 

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