Putting the Pieces Together

Four American Examples
In February of 2007, the Miistakis Institute had the opportunity to visit and review in depth the following four different successful Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) programs in four communities in the United States:
- Larimer County, Colorado
- Boulder County, Colorado
- Calvert County, Maryland
- Montgomery County, Maryland
The four programs were chosen from the approximately 200 American programs based on a mix of factors including their high level of success, applicability to Alberta in terms of goals and landscapes, and their amenability to meeting. Across the case studies, the authours had the opportunity to meet with a variety of program participants including county planners, developers, landowners, brokers, real estate agents, agricultural preservation organizations, protected area program managers, and others. There was a uniformly high level of welcome, and requests for an hour or two routinely turned into full-day events.
The following is a summary of those programs, including brief program descriptions and overview of their results, and an account of the lessons learned which were applicable to the Alberta context.