County staff study shows residential development costs outpace agricultural revenue; staff say preserving farmland lowers net service cost

Mark Sites, director of Pender County Cooperative Extension, presented a county-prepared cost-of-community-services study Wednesday that estimates the fiscal costs and revenues associated with different land-use categories—residential, commercial and agricultural.

Sites said staff used prior audited financial data and allocated county service costs across land-use categories by direct attribution where possible or pro rata percentages where services cross categories. The study excluded tax-exempt properties such as state game lands, churches and school-owned parcels from the agricultural totals. Using the methodology presented, the study shows that agricultural and timberland parcels require substantially less county support per dollar of revenue than residential parcels.

Sites and county finance staff said the main purpose was to quantify what many local officials have long observed: housing development typically uses more county services and therefore can be costlier on a per-dollar basis than preserving farmland. He also cautioned that some USDA acreage figures appeared inconsistent—likely a reporting duplication where leased acres and owner-reported acres overlap—and that staff can update the analysis easily when newer county financial inputs are available.

The presentation included comparisons with other North Carolina counties and noted that Pender County’s cost ratio for agricultural land fell in a mid-range compared with peer counties. Sites framed the study as a tool to inform land-use and preservation decisions and to support policymakers considering farmland-protection measures.