Saving the Farms

Every year about 350,000 acres of farm land on the fringes of America's suburbs--an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island--are taken out of crops and put into buildings. Though the loss may seem insignificant in a nation with 470 million acres of cropland, there is a hitch. Much of the lost acreage is top-quality farm land, rich soil that the U.S. should keep as a major resource. But to save such land for farming has been almost impossible. Buying it outright is too expensive. Zoning it for agricultural use only can often be illegal. The U.S. Constitution forbids any action that lowers land values (in this case by banning any sort of development) without "just compensation."

But there is a middle way, one now being tested in Suffolk County on the eastern end of Long Island. Famous for the Hamptons, a string of summer resort communities along the Atlantic Ocean beaches, Suffolk has 40,000 acres of cropland that has made it the most productive farm county in New York State. The land is also perfect for developers--pancake flat and on the edge of the sprawling metropolitan area formed by New York City and its neighboring Nassau County suburbs. To keep the developers from obliterating Suffolk's rural character, the citizens of the county have decided to try something new: buying not the farm land but the farmer's right to sell his acreage to developers. That will cost money, but not as much as buying the land outright. If a farm is worth, say, $6,000 per acre to a developer but only $1,500 per acre to a farmer, the county will pay the difference--$4,500--for the "development rights." In return, farmers who join the program must agree to keep the land in farms forever.

Too Radical. The scheme is mainly the work of County Executive John Klein, 43, who began his campaign to save what he calls "New York City's breadbasket" right after being elected in 1971. His first step was to set up a twelve-man committee of farmers and charge it with rinding a way to keep the farm lands. John Talmage, 45, a farmer in Riverhead, suggested the development-rights formula. The idea seemed so radical, he recalls, that "I thought it was not salable."

But Klein bought it and resold it to the county legislature, which voted $60 million in 30-year bonds to acquire development rights. The cost will be borne by local residents, whose taxes will rise a few cents a year. Yet Suffolk's citizens have generally supported the bond issue because they stand to gain from preserving the farms. Some of those who will benefit:

1) Year-round residents will keep their low tax base. At first, some Suffolk County residents subscribed to the popular myth that new subdivisions, by bringing in more taxpayers, would lower per capita taxes. But Klein proved that in Nassau County rapid development actually caused a rise in local taxes, which were needed for costly new roads, schools and other services.

2) Summer homeowners, drawn to the area by the attractive landscape, will continue to enjoy the unspoiled look that well-farmed, wide-open fields provide.

3) Farmers will have their taxes stabilized. As elsewhere, taxes in Suffolk are figured on the land's "highest and best use"--i.e., its value to developers. Local governments now give farmers a break by assessing their land at what Klein candidly describes as "illegally low preferential rates." But such treatment cannot continue indefinitely, he says. Nor can the county help when federal and state inheritance taxes, which are based on the land's full value, come due. Under the development-rights scheme, however, all taxes will be reckoned only on the land's agricultural value. Beyond the tax advantage, says Water Mill Farmer Tom Halsey, "I still keep my pride in ownership. I am still able to build farm buildings on my land. And with the money that I can get from selling my development rights, I might even be able to buy more farm land."

That left only one question. How many of the county's farmers--a notably independent lot--would choose to sell their development rights? This winter Suffolk invited farmers to join the program. The response was overwhelming: 381 property owners offered the county rights to 17,800 acres for some $117 million. Klein has established a committee to select the best buys for Suffolk's $60 million. He plans to ask the legislature to authorize another $15 million bond issue next year, but already he feels vindicated. "Suffolk is a microcosm of the U.S.," he says. "If the development-rights program can work here, it can work anywhere."

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