Chapter § 9.5 Funding the Acquisition of Development Rights

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§9.5 FUNDING THE ACQUISITION OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS

There are a variety of funding methods for entities to acquire or purchase development rights. Examples of funding sources include a conservation futures tax or a real estate excise tax, many times leveraged with federal and state grants, private donations, or partnerships with nonprofit organizations. Such funding mechanisms allow counties to generate sufficient revenue to establish and implement PDR and TDR programs, without being completely reliant on external funding sources.

(1) Conservation futures programs

The Washington State Legislature has declared that citizens have a "fundamental and inalienable right" to a healthy environment, and thus created the Department of Ecology and passed several other laws to preserve environmental resources. One of those was the conservation futures tax, passed in 1971 and signed into law by former Governor Dan Evans. Authority establishing conservation futures is codified under RCW 84.34.220, which provides in part:

In accordance with the authority granted in RCW 84.34.210, a county, city, town, metropolitan park district, metropolitan municipal corporation, nonprofit historic preservation corporation as defined in RCW 64.04.130, or nonprofit nature conservancy corporation or association, as such are defined in RCW 84.34.250, may specifically purchase or otherwise acquire, except by eminent domain, rights in perpetuity to future development of any open space land, farm and agricultural land, and timber land which are so designated under the provisions of chapter 84.34 RCW and taxed at current use assessment as provided by that chapter. For the purposes of chapter 243, Laws of 1971 ex. sess., such developmental rights shall be termed "conservation futures".

The conservation futures tax permits counties to levy an amount not to exceed 6.25 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation against the assessed valuation of all taxable property within the county for the purpose of acquiring future development rights for preservation purposes. The conservation futures tax amount of 6.25 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value is codified under RCW 84.34.230, which provides in part:

For the purpose of acquiring conservation futures and other rights and interests in real property pursuant to RCW 84.34.210 and 84.34.220, and for maintaining and operating any property acquired with these funds, a county may levy an amount not to exceed six and one-quarter cents...