NJ Smart Growth Pilot Program Goes Statewide

Towns in New Jersey soon will be able to join Burlington County in a land-use trading experiment.

The New Jersey state Senate recently passed a bill expanding the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program from its pilot status in Burlington County to the rest of the state. The TDR program is based on the principle that the right to develop land can be severed from ownership of the land itself (similar to an easement), and transferred to another property. Development is then shifted from one area within a community to another that is deemed more suitable for development. The strategy is to use private market forces, not just public acquisition funds, to promote conservation in high value natural, agricultural, and open space areas while encouraging smart growth in developed and developing sections of a community. TDR is designed to allow towns to cluster development where roads, sewers and schools can accommodate it. Farmers sell their development rights to builders who then can build at higher densities elsewhere in the same town. The program has been legal in Burlington County since 1989. Only two towns in the county, Chesterfield and Lumberton, have experimented with it. A TDR bank, already in existence, would manage the statewide program. Divergent interest groups, including the South Jersey Builders League, the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, NJ Future, and the New Jersey Farm Bureau support the program. NJ Gov. James E. McGreevey, is expected to sign the bill into law.