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Ag and planning commissioners urge caution: don’t finalize de‑designations until TDR or other protections are in place
Summary
Members of the Ag Commission urged the council not to proceed with agricultural land de‑designation without a workable TDR or mitigation program in place; individual planning commissioners described mixed views but said previous motions intended to tie any designation to functional TDR protections.
Representatives from the county’s Planning Commission and Agricultural Advisory Commission used the March 18 session to explain their respective positions and to flag specific concerns for council consideration.
Jack Haroun, a planning commissioner, described a view that favors using TDRs as a conservation tool and opposed the use of density bonuses as the only lever. He said a “clean TDR program” that preserves farmland and creates credits for developers to purchase would be a productive path forward.
Mo McKenna, co‑chair of the Ag Commission, told the council the commission strongly supports creating a program before designating or de‑designating agricultural land. “We are recommending that no designation take place until a TDR program is in place first,” McKenna said, arguing that designation without a viable TDR or mitigation mechanism could accelerate speculation and fragment sending areas that county planners want to protect.
Members of the Ag Commission urged the council to consider complementary tools — purchase of development rights (PDR), mitigation ratios or agricultural districts — and recommended staff capacity to work directly with landowners to assemble effective sending areas. They noted an ag study that identified over 60,000 acres in Clark County that may be well suited as sending areas but said many parcels are fragmented and would need substantial work to become program‑ready.
Planning commissioners clarified their record: some supported conditional approvals tied to a functioning TDR program rather than an absolute ‘‘no net loss’’ pledge; others emphasized that comp‑plan designation decisions and TDR program development are separate legal processes and that the council must weigh Growth Management Act compliance risks.
Why it matters: The commissions’ input frames the central policy trade‑off councilors face: proceed with UGA designations now to capture an immediate market opportunity for sending and receiving sites, or wait until a TDR/PDR program, interlocal agreements and administrative capacity are in place to reduce the risk of failed transactions and lost conservation value.
What happens next: Commissioners encouraged more detailed parcel analysis, and councilors agreed to a targeted work session to review the city‑requested parcels and the ag‑study evaluation criteria before a scheduled public hearing on the preferred alternative.
