The Grand Rapids Press

Alpine Township officials are stumping for ways to accommodate the area's growing residential and commercial population. The catch: minimize the impact of pressure on farmers to sell their land to developers.

A citizen's advisory committee is being formed to look into the possibility of offering transfer of development rights to those with farmland most likely to be developed.

"It's just more tools for the toolbox," said Township Supervisor Sharon Steffens. "If you don't provide any options at all, you may see everything develop and have no options."

The citizen's advisory committee, to be appointed by Steffens and be comprised of farmers, township officials, developers, landowners and others, will examine transfer requests and make recommendations to the Board of Trustees.

In a transfer of development rights, a farmer can transfer an assigned number of rights to a different property targeted for development and with easier access to water and sewer services.

A developer deals directly with a farmer in bargaining for a price on the transfer, and an easement is placed on the property that is preserved. Using the transfer as incentive, the developer would be allowed to put more houses on a given area of land than what it is zoned for.

TDRs are hammered out privately between landowners and developers, so no public money is used.

The only downside Steffens can forsee is maintaining a balance between the number of rights available and the number of parcels to which the rights could be transferred.

"You're essentially creating a market for a commodity," she said. "If the market isn't there, it isn't going to work."

But maintaining a balance includes those who already live in the township, she said.

"We don't want the density to increase to where it affects the quality of life. We want to have good, quality neighborhoods."

So far, no other Kent County community has implemented a TDR program.

Alpine township totals approximately 23,141 acres. Of that, an estimated 1,021 acreas are commercial-zoned; 2,930 are residential; 17,555 are agricultural and 349 are rural-agricultural.

A 1997 study showed the township had 172 parcels measuring 40 or more acres that currently are used primarily as farm or orchard land, 37 of which have been operating for over 100 years.

But farmers do want their right to sell preserved.

In a survey conducted last year by the Kent County-MSU extension program, 43 percent of the more than150 township farmers think their land is more valuable for development than for farming, listing taxes and profitability as the top two determining factors.

The township would need to hold public hearings and adopt ordinances before enacting development rights policies. Steffen said the issue likely will be taken up again after the first of the year.