Pennsylvania - LANCASTER COUNTY
Countywide program - Formed in 1980 - researched by Deborah Bowers

OVERVIEW - Lancaster County combines a very active easement program with a highly productive farm economy. In 2003 it has the second most active local agricultural easement program in the nation in acres under easement. As well, Lancaster is the leading agricultural county in the Northeast in farm market value and ranks 15th nationwide by this measure. Lancaster was the first Pennsylvania County to acquire agricultural easements, forming its program and accepting donations and purchasing easements several years before the state program began. Along with its strong agricultural economy and rural character, typified by the presence of large Amish and Mennonite communities, Lancaster is a fast growing metropolitan area with almost a half million residents. The metropolitan centers of Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Wilmington are within 45-minute commuting times. More explicitly than in most other areas, agricultural easements are linked to growth management efforts that direct urban development away from farmland. Easements are strategically located, in some cases supporting Urban Growth Boundaries that have been established through the cooperation of townships, cities and the county government. Two of the county's townships have transfer of development rights (TDR) programs.

EASEMENT ACTIVITY - 45,425 agricultural acres county-preserved on 473 properties: corn, soybeans, orchards, dairy, hogs.
Goals: To continue current efforts as funding and staffing permit.
Other Easement Programs: The Lancaster Farmland Trust holds agricultural easements on 9,584 acres. About 1,000 TDR acres have been accumulated by Manheim and Warwick townships.
Total Agricultural Easements in County: Approximately 56,009 acres.

FUNDING
Acquisition Spending to Date: $89 million
Revenues: General fund appropriations ($5 million), county bond funds ($32 million), state allocations ($51.1 million) and federal funds ($538,000). The county has gone to the bond market three times to raise funds for easement acquisitions. The county program also has benefited from a large number of landowner-donated easements. A few easement purchases have been made through Installment Purchase Agreements (IPAs) funded through general appropriations. Warwick Township, through TDR sales, has provided matching funds totaling $116,000 for easement purchases through the Lancaster Farmland Trust.

GOVERNANCE - The nine-member Agricultural Preserve Board (APB) is appointed by the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners. The staff constitute an independent county department.

STAFF AND OPERATING BUDGET - Six staff-Executive Director and others with responsibilities in project management, monitoring and data collection. The annual operating budget is about $900,000.

ORIGINS - Lancaster County was an early adopter of farmland preservation policies. A 1975 county plan called for the preservation of 280,000 agricultural areas and the development of 100,000 acres. Lancaster formed its APB in 1980, eight years before the Pennsylvania state funding program began. The county received several donated restricted deeds in 1982 and purchased its first easements-the first in the state-in 1984 with general appropriation funds. By the time state funds became available, Lancaster had accumulated easements on 5,500 agricultural acres.

ACQUISITION PROCESS AND STRATEGY - The program's executive director applies the ranking system to applications and the APB reviews the rankings and decides which applications to submit for state review and final funding approval. Considerable discretion beyond the quantitative scores is employed by county officials with an emphasis on geographical targeting.
Rating of Parcels: Quantitative. Offers are prioritized based on point scores derived from a Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) formula. Agricultural quality (soils) receives the highest attention. Contiguity to other preserved farms and development pressure are also highly rated. Lesser weights are assigned to parcel size and farm management.
Other Criteria: Minimum state-designated criteria are size or contiguity, location in an Agricultural Security Area, soils and harvested cropland. More so than most other programs, the Lancaster APB considers qualitative factors-especially strategic location-in reviewing applications. Only easements on agriculturally zoned acres are purchased. Farms within a township-designated Urban Growth Boundary are disqualified, while parcels that lie just outside are given priority as a means of reinforcing the boundaries.

CONNECTIONS TO LOCAL PLANNING AND LAND USE POLICIES - While townships and other municipalities control land use planning and zoning, the county planning staff advises and provides technical assistance to the municipalities. The APB is active in this area, working with county and township planners. The strategic placement of agricultural easements is seen as complementing the Urban Growth Boundaries formed in several locations through informal township-city-county agreements.
Zoning: Thirty-nine of 41 townships in Lancaster County have agricultural zoning, with typical residential densities of one unit to 25 acres.
TDR Arrangements: Both townships using TDRs have designated sending and receiving areas, agricultural and residential or industrial land, respectively. Most transferred credits have been purchased by the townships and later sold to developers.

DEMOGRAPHICS
2000 Population: 470,658
1990-2000 Population Change: +47,836 residents; +11 percent

AGRICULTURAL LAND
391,836 acres: 84 percent cropland
Conversion to Urban Use: An estimated 1,500-2,000 acres were converted annually in recent years, exceeded by easement acquisitions of about 5,000 acres per year. (Program data)

OTHER AGRICULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
1997 Market Value: $767 million Number of Farms: 4,556
Principal Commodities: Soybeans, corn, dairy, hogs

MAP NARRATIVE - EASEMENT GEOGRAPHY (PROGRAM MAP)
The major concentration of easements is in the county's northwest corner. Many of these easements are wedged between two urban growth boundaries in a contiguous block of 5,000 acres. Other large blocks of preserved farmland are emerging in the southern end of the county and between Lititz and Ephrata.

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