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Keswick Life - A Place in the Country
David Hamilton and Joe Barnes, 3/1/2009
Email: info@bundoranfarm.com
Website: http://bundoranfarm.com
The following article appeared in the February 2009 issue of Keswick Life, a monthly publication that focuses on "Lifestyles in the Keswick Environs"
Keswick Life
A Place in the Country: Important Considerations When Purchasing Rural Land
By David Hamilton and Joe Barnes
About the authors: Project Manager David Hamilton of Qroe Farm, and Development Director Joe Barnes of Celebration Associates design and manage the 2,300 acre Preservation Development, Bundoran Farm, near Charlottesville. Admitting only around a hundred homesites, while permanently protecting upwards of 90% of the parcel’s verdant agricultural land, forests and streams, the Bundoran Farm design team addresses, daily, the concerns of many rural land purchasers over viewshed security, environmental stewardship, and all the details of making a new home in rural Virginia.
When sales began at Bundoran Farm, in Charlottesville, we decided to start a list of “frequently asked questions” from our purchasers and their realtors, to better understand the needs of our owners. By about the third sale in our Founding Stewards program, we had collected over 90 unique concerns about buying rural land. We were astonished, and the list has only expanded over the past year. The Bundoran Farm team sensed that something was afoot: this seemingly simple purchase is, in fact, freighted with any number of concerns. In this article, we offer you an overview, by no means complete, of several key decision points for individuals looking for their “place in the country.”
A Brief History of “the Country”
America’s greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, once advised a client on moving to the country: “…find the place you love today, then go about thirty miles further out…” Wright saw, even in the 1940’s, that the automobile and communications technologies would forever change the clear demarcation between city and country life. The intervening decades have seen an explosion in suburban and exurban development, which has changed not just the appearance of America’s agrarian landscape, but has fundamentally complicated the process of purchasing rural land.
Historically, the purchase of a “place in the country” has been an uncomplicated and common choice for successful individuals seeking a place of respite and simplicity, either for weekends, retirement, or a career “downshift.” Owning a camp, a lakehouse, or a farm property was a simple purchase, requiring a simple appraisal of the quality of land and structure. In recent decades, however, rural areas have come under increasing development pressure, and the buyer of the little farmstead “in the middle of nowhere” can, only a few years later, find himself an island in a sea of suburban development. Moreover, surrounding development can make a purchase more complex, adding issues of infrastructure, future development and zoning, and increasing friction between agricultural operations and lifestyles of new arrivals. Finally, since new arrivals increasingly maintain connection to their employment centers by telecommuting, or semi-commuting, the traditional desire for rural isolation can be more nuanced. Today’s rural land buyers are often looking for solitude and privacy, but not too far from the nearest broadband line.
The following are some of the most pertinent questions we hear from people looking for their “place in the country” at Bundoran Farm, in Charlottesville.
Will My Country Place Remain in the Country?
The growth of suburban and exurban communities is, as a trend, hard to overstate. According to the American Farmland Trust, from 1992 to 1997, on average over a million acres of farmland was converted to developed uses. Including forested lands doubles that figure. In Virginia alone, this means farmland about eight times the land area of Manhattan being developed each year. Within this transformation of the American landscape, many potential buyers of rural land still want the same thing: that sense of quiet, peaceful privacy, and a slower-paced life. Unfortunately, the large numbers of folks heading out to the country can radically alter the ambiance and pace of life that attracts them in the first place.
The first issue to consider in determining the long-term security of a rural property investment is the overall development climate. The county’s Comprehensive Plan (usually available on the jurisdiction’s website), is a good starting place. It’s no guarantee, but if the area of interest is zoned Rural Area, Agricultural or a similar category, then Planning Commission and staff decisions will, at least generally, be guided toward maintaining those land uses, and public hearings will often be required to do otherwise. Variance to these plans is usually for a good reason, though changes are more likely to occur in areas near the boundary between targeted growth areas and agricultural areas. Note that it is not unheard of for elected officials to radically change their posture toward development over a single election cycle. Also, keep in mind that, in many jurisdictions, a “by-right” small-lot development option remains, even in “Rural Areas,” which, though entirely legal, may look more to the neighbors like high-density development than the rural residential feel they expect.
One common approach, for protection-minded purchasers, is to look for land adjacent to parcels under some sort of private or public protection. Traditionally, this has meant finding a farm parcel next to a state or national park, but the recent flourishing of private conservation efforts and public entities such as Agricultural-Forestal (“Ag-For”) districts has multiplied greatly the types of easement and covenant-protected lands. Of course, the range of preservation strategies have varying degrees of protection. Simply knowing that an adjacent parcel is “protected” is inadequate. Insist on seeing the easement, deed or other documents outlining the terms of protection. In the case of Ag-For districts, know the term of protection. A ten-year voluntary easement may not be meaningful, if you intend to spend your life next door. Evaluate your subject parcel by considering what the view, traffic and infrastructure would look like if all adjacent parcels were developed to their zoned density.
One final caveat: prospective buyers must understand that, just because an adjacent parcel might be protected by a conservation instrument, it does not follow that neighbors will have access to that land, and they will certainly have no control over its use. This point was made for us by a story we heard a year or two ago: a buyer in Northern Virginia had found the holy grail, the relatively affordable twenty-odd acre parcel surrounded on three sides by huge tracts of forest service land. His first surprise came when, assuming that nobody would mind a law-abiding taxpayer riding up the federally-maintained forest trail, he took off for his first trail ride. He was quickly disabused of the notion by a helpful ranger a half-mile in. His second surprise came when the patch-clear-cutting started, as part of a long-term experiment in forest management.
What’s So Complicated About Buying Land?
The public debate over appropriate rural land use has spawned a substantial increase in regulation, even of approved uses and building types. The same regulations you’re looking for in the Comprehensive Plan to protect you, can also complicate your use of a parcel. Many of the modern requirements for zoning and building permits would be unrecognizable to a landowner of fifty years ago.
First, and most importantly, some jurisdictions exercise some control over the location of homesites on a rural parcel. This is a point you’ll want to clear up before purchasing the verdant farm with the ideal homesite perched atop a knoll. If, in fact, that knoll is surrounded by Critical Slopes (slopes steeper greater than a certain value, which varies among counties), or protected streams (which may not look like “streams,” to the uninitiated), then you’ll be looking at that knoll from your new home, down at the bottom.
Second, because most rural land is beyond the reach of public utilities, prospective buyers need to know where they’re getting water, septic fields, power and communications services. The first item can be as simple as drilling a well prior to closing, but can also include chemical and biological testing of the site’s water supply, as many purchasers become knowledgeable and concerned about toxic groundwater conditions from prior uses (just because it’s a verdant pasture now doesn’t mean it was in 1930). Virginia’s legal approach, like many states, is essentially caveat emptor, so do the diligence required to feel comfortable with your purchase. After water and septic, one of the primary concerns of our owners at Bundoran Farm is communications and connectivity. It is increasingly common to see individuals paying large sums to entice an incumbent phone provider to bring even DSL-quality service to their country home. Sometimes these fees represent a significant percentage of the property’s value. Worse still is the story we heard last year, of an attorney who purchased his “dream farm,” only to find that it was impossible, at any price, to provide adequate teldata service to allow him to telecommute, a critical requirement that was not investigated at the time of purchase.
Beyond regulation, there are simply issues of evaluating land. Fifty years ago, farmland was considered, and often marketed as “vacant” land. Of course, productive land is anything but vacant. Good agricultural stewardship endows a farm with a beauty and fertility that improves the land. Sub-par stewardship can impair land, water and forests in ways that will take decades to reverse. Land can be legally complicated as well. It is not uncommon for farms to have deed-recorded rights of access to timber or mineral assets, cemeteries or shared ponds, which may be on adjacent parcels. Imagine your surprise, sitting on your porch, when the timber trucks start rolling down your driveway, using the right-of-way granted them in 1950.
How “Country” Do I Want My Place in the Country?
Many states, including Virginia, have instituted “Right to Farm” laws. Such statutes are intended to address a common problem: new arrivals to the countryside don’t know what to expect, having agricultural neighbors. They may complain when the wind shifts over the manure spreader, or when the tractors fire up at 6am during a hay cutting. Fundamentally, these laws limit the right of non-farm landowners to redress such grievances, and prospective rural land owners must understand, if an issue like this arises, and no law has been broken, you will not have standing to complain. Just as in the development example, a prospective buyer must evaluate a potential purchase not in terms of what’s happening next door, but what might happen. What if the horse pasture next door becomes a dairy lot? What if the charming barn across the street becomes a winery, with ample parking for tour buses?
For some buyers of rural land, the answer is, more or less, “bring it on.” They relish the dirt and smells of productive agriculture, and look forward to the relationships they’ll build with their neighbors. Still, a second concern looms:
You Mean I’m a Farmer Now?
Many urban and suburban residents imagine the rural landscape to be an island of permanence in a fast-changing world, and a link to nature. In fact, a farm is a man-made landscape, which often behaves like a rapidly growing organism. A farm property cannot simply be owned. If it is to remain productive, and if it is to retain its scenic and “natural” charm, every aspect of the land must be managed. Stewardship of even a modest-sized farm can involve large and continuous investment in equipment, manpower and research, and a farm without productive management will be visually and ecologically unrecognizable in a matter of a few years. This is the source of the old real estate saw: that the buyers of five-acre properties are primarily the folks who bought a hundred acres two years ago, and have had enough. Understand that, just because a farm has a tenant paying for expenses and improvements now, doesn’t mean it will always be so. Have a plan for your property, and develop good relationships in the agricultural community. The four things you need to run a farm of any kind are good sunlight, good water, good soil and good help.
If It’s So Complicated, Why Do So Many People Do It?
The good news is that, wherever you find your “place in the country,” whatever its size, and whatever the frustrations, for most people, a life lived closer to the soil is a wonderfully rich experience. Rural Virginia is a landscape rich in wonders, and the agricultural community of this state is an extraordinary group of businesspeople, conservationists and, for lack of a better word, artists. It’s a great place to raise children who will know where food comes from, and the value of a day’s work. It’s also the case that an increasing number of landowners, planners and developers have begun to understand these many advantages of rural culture and ecology.
At Bundoran Farm, our goal has been to address the ever-increasing complexity of a rural land purchase by making that purchase secure in a way that no single parcel could be. At Bundoran, a 2,300 acre property near Charlottesville, the idea is to allow a small number of homesites, in a very limited development area, with each owner (“Steward,” we call them), having access to the whole farm, over 90% of which remains under easement and long-term professional management. Essentially, each Steward owns not just their homesite, but a portion of the conservation land, and its 15+ miles of trails, shared by all. In addition to the view protection of a very large, carefully-designed parcel, Stewards know that the agricultural and recreational land will always be managed appropriately and in their interests. They also have some confidence that, as much as it doesn’t look like a “development,” many of the basic concerns, like water and septic suitability, have been addressed prior to their purchase. In the particular case of connectivity, we are pleased to offer our owners fiber-optic connections at each homesite, leapfrogging over typically-available technologies.
What is underway at Bundoran Farm is just one more example of how choices in rural land are becoming more complex. As recently as a decade ago, buyers had two choices: a “rural subdivision,” typically larger-lot communities with the look and feel of suburban models, or “vacant farmland,” an independent property with all the attendant benefits and responsibilities. Of course we’re partial to the Preservation Development model at Bundoran Farm, but there are other kinds of thoughtfully-planned rural communities, in many parts of the country, that address these same issues.
Whatever your ultimate decision regarding a rural land purchase, we hope you find the above information informative, not simply daunting. As mentioned above, the great responsibility of rural land stewardship is only exceeded by the great pleasure owners take in their stewardship. Welcome to the country, and we look forward to being neighborly.
Some Primary Concerns in the Rural Land Purchase:
Determining Your Needs
¬Timeline for move
Climate, Microclimate, Soils and Exposure
Land Use: Gardening, Riding, Farming, Hiking, Equestrian
Caretaking / farming / leasing
Commutes and Proximity to Town Amenities
Evaluating Rural Land
Water / Wells: availability, cost, reliability, testing (see toxics)
Roads, state and private
Fire and emergency service, proximity to healthcare
Services and Utilities
Toxics and unknowns (surveys, assessments, legal requirements)
Access: Vehicular utility connections
Rights-of-Way and shared facilities
Making a Home in the Country
Zoning: Agricultural or Rural Area, Rural Residential, Clusters, Overlays and Corridors
“Right to Farm” and other laws
Building site regulations, critical resources, slopes, etc.
Property taxes and requirements for use-value (agricultural taxation)
Insurance
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