Transfer of Development Rights to Protect Water Resources

Abstract

Public agencies face a dilemma when assessing whether to protect land-use related resources such as beaches, hillsides, farmland, historic structures, or water. If development is not regulated, then it may occur at a level that is harmful to the resource; but if development is curtailed or banned, the regulation may be illegal or unjust to the resource owner. One path out of this dilemma is to regulate the development while allowing the resource owner to transfer development rights (TDR). This option, the TDR for the purpose of pro-tecting water resources, is the focus of this article. The first section of the article describes TDRs and provides