AKRON, OHIO -- Melinda Byrd's lament sounds familiar.

Seventeen years ago, she and her husband moved to the country, to a modest home on a small, one-acre lot. Across the street were cornfields. Behind her were more fields of corn and hay. And her back yard was the next best thing to a wildlife refuge, with frequent visits from bobwhite quails.

But that's all gone now, even the bobwhites. The once-tranquil rural setting has been replaced by huge, $350,000 vinyl-sided houses on sprawling three-acre lots.

Her plight sounds like that of many in rural Northeast Ohio.

Byrd, though, lives in Carroll County, Md., which has one of the most highly touted farmland preservation programs in the country.

And despite millions of dollars spent to preserve farms and open spaces, developers continue to entice farmers with big paydays. And farms continue to be supplanted with homes.

So the question then becomes, do these tax-supported preservation programs work?

Do programs work?

The answer, say farmers, planners and other experts, depends on what a community is trying to accomplish.

If the hope is to save farms, then, yes, the programs work, they say.

If, however, the hope is to slow development, the answer is unequivocally no.

Since the beginning of the year, Ohio's counties have had the same options that counties in other states, such as Carroll in Maryland and Bucks in Pennsylvania, have at their disposal: purchase of development rights, or PDRs.

Though PDRs are only one option, they have received the most attention. The basic concept is that farmers are paid to never develop their land, thus reducing the pressure farmers feel to sell their land to developers. Farmers are paid the difference between the value of their land as a farm and the value of the land if sold to a developer.

In Medina County, for instance, an average acre of farmland is valued at about $1,800, while the same land sold for development could fetch $2,913, according to a search of records in the county auditor's office by the county's farmland task force. That's a difference of $1,113 per acre, the amount a farmer would be paid to sell development rights.

For one 500-acre farm, that's $556,500. For Medina County to reach the task force's goal -- to save the same amount of farmland that is being lost annually, or about 2,000 acres -- the cost would be $2.2 million a year.

And that's where the controversy surrounding PDRs comes in. It's an expensive program.

Carroll County program

Take Carroll County. It is touted by the national Farmland Preservation Report as having one of the top preservation programs in the nation.

From 1982 to 1992, the county preserved 21,000 acres of farmland and open space, at a cost of $4 million per year in state and county money.

Yet the county also lost 20,700 acres to residential development.

"It's too slow," Carroll County planning director Marlene Conaway said of the program. "Our concern is we're buying too slow. We need to purchase it now. It will never be cheaper than it is right now."

But that takes money. And the state program, supported by a 2-cents-a-pack cigarette tax, has been scaled back so that it can preserve no more than 10,000 acres in any one county.

The result, said resident Melinda Byrd, is that despite all the best efforts, Carroll County is losing its rural character, as those who work 20 to 30 miles away in Baltimore continue to seek the refuge of the countryside.

"When I first moved to Carroll County, there was open space everyplace," said Byrd, manager of an environmental center. "There's a sense of freedom living in the country. The wildlife was fantastic. We had bobwhite quails just wander through our back yard. I haven't seen a bobwhite in 10 years.

"I used to get on my cross-country skis and no one would see me. It was like being in the wilderness. Now, to do that route again, I'd be going through 30 people's back yards.

"I hate to say, 'Let me in and close the door, ... but people move to Carroll County because it's rural. There's still some beautiful land left, but it's disappearing fast."

Much the same is happening in Bucks County, Pa., which has become a bedroom community for Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey.

Since 1989 in Bucks County, 39 farms (3,568 acres) were saved. The cost: $28.5 million in state and local money.

Still, Mike Fournier of the Bucks County extension office estimates that over that period, nearly twice as much farmland, possibly 6,000 acres, was lost to development. He said he won't know for sure until the farm census is released this spring, but his gut reaction is telling him it won't be good.

"We can't preserve enough farmland to really battle developers," Fournier said. "There's still plenty of open ground. The problem is the cost of real estate here. ... The developers know we absolutely can't outbid them. When it comes down to it, we have a limit. We can only spend $10,000 an acre by state law, and many times the land is worth far more than that."

However, Fournier and others are quick to point out, "that does not mean the program is not successful." Saving 3,568 acres in Bucks County is significant, Fournier said. The county's goal is to preserve 10,000 acres.

So far, the preservation has occurred in upper Bucks County, where farming still is viable. Most agree the lower and central parts of the county are too far gone.

But because of the state and county program, Fournier said, several townships have proposed their own levies to purchase development rights in their jurisdictions. They all passed 2-1, he said.

"You have to draw the line somewhere," Fournier said. "We've decided to draw it here in Bucks County."

Cost to taxpayers

Though it could take millions of dollars annually to make a dent in any one county, preservationists argue the effort is cheaper than the alternative.

A 1997 Penn State University study backs that up, showing that farmland and open space cost taxpayers much less than new homes. Using Bedminster Township in Bucks County as an example, for every dollar in taxes a homeowner pays, the government spends $1.12 for services to support that household. By contrast, for every dollar a farm pays in taxes, it receives only 4 cents in services.

In Ohio, Wayne County's task force chairman Tom Machamer, owner of Cedar Lane Farms near Smithville, said it's common sense to reason that a 100-acre farm with one family costs taxpayers less in services than that same 100 acres would cost after being developed into 50 homes, which would put more students in school, require improvements to roads and sewers and create a greater burden on police, fire and social services.

"Critics say there's not enough money in the state of Ohio to save farmland," Machamer said. "That may be true, but I look at it like the Wright brothers looked at aviation: They may not have had the tools or foresight or money to build a 747, but they wanted to get off the ground. That's the way I look at farmland preservation; we have to get it off the ground."

'Not the golden bullet'

Portage County extension agent Steve Hudkins said, "PDR is one tool, one method, one part of the whole picture. It is certainly not the answer, not the golden bullet, not the thing that's going to save all farmland. It needs to be used judiciously, where it fits."

Hudkins said it will also be important planners, farmers, politicians and the public have realistic expectations about what farmland preservation means.

"Our goal is not to stop development," he said. "I don't even know I would say the goal is to slow development. It's more important to look at the pattern of development."

Developers and homebuilders are leery of a program that would put a dent in their livelihood. Marty Azola, president of the Home Builders Association of Maryland, said he and others are tired of being made to look like the bad guys.

With estimates showing that Maryland will have 1 million new residents in 20 years, Azola said: "We have to house these people. It's our business."

Pub Date: 03/07/99