Farmland is a critical component of our state and regional economy, benefiting local economies through sales, related business enterprises, processing and distribution industries and local job creation. Farming has long been a part of St. Clair County’s history and culture.

St. Clair County is growing and new development is displacing valuable agricultural land and natural open spaces. Sprawl is impacting communities across the United States. In neighboring counties like Macomb and Oakland, communities are fully entrenched in combating sprawl. Macomb County has lost nearly 87,000 acres of farmland and nearly 1,400 farms over the last 40 years. As Metro Detroit continues its expansion outward to the fringes, vast expanses of farmland are being sold off, split up and transformed into sprawling subdivisions.

In 2001, a diverse group of farmers and local officials formed the Farmland and Open Space Initiative (FOSI), a group dedicated to developing innovative procedures for preserving farmland in St. Clair County. This was the first citizen-based, grassroots partnership of individuals, organizations, and communities in the county focusing on protecting farmland and open space for present and future generations. Assisted by the Metropolitan Planning Commission, the group met for a year before drafting a framework for the county’s first farmland preservation program. Outside experts facilitated the planning process and provided technical expertise in formulating a Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program. Throughout the planning process, there were many opportunities for public involvement.

Among other things, the Agricultural Preservation Board developed an Agricultural Preservation Fund Scoring and Application System to be used for scoring applications for Agricultural Preservation grants and produced the county’s first PDR ordinance. Under a PDR program, a landowner voluntarily sells his or her rights to develop a parcel of land to a public agency or a charitable organization interested in natural resource conservation. The landowner retains all other ownership rights attached to the land, and a conservation easement is placed on the land and recorded on the title. The buyer, generally a local government, purchases the right to develop the land and retires that right permanently, thus ensuring that development will not occur on that piece of land.