Transfer & Purchase of Development Rights in Frederick County, Virginia

Frederick was first in Virginia to adopt a TDR program

In April 2010, Frederick County's Board of Supervisors adopted a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) ordinance, making Frederick the first locality in Virginia to build a TDR program under state enabling legislation the General Assembly had passed just two years earlier, in 2008. A TDR program lets a landowner in a designated rural "sending" area sell the development rights attached to their land -- permanently retiring the ability to build on it at anything beyond agricultural density -- to a developer who then applies those purchased rights to build at higher density in a designated "receiving" area better suited to growth. The land itself isn't sold; only the right to develop it is transferred.

Frederick's program serves two property interests at once: farmland preservation for the RA (Rural Areas) landowner selling rights, and increased development density for a builder working in the county's designated Urban Development Area (UDA). That dual purpose is why the program has persisted and why the county has continued building on it since 2010 rather than treating it as a one-time initiative.

How the sending and receiving math actually works

The specifics matter if you're evaluating RA-zoned land as a potential TDR sending site. The county calculates available development rights by first deducting all submerged land, floodplain, and steep slopes from a parcel's total acreage, along with any acreage already restricted by a prior TDR transfer or conservation easement. From what remains, the county allows one transferable development right for every 5 acres of RA-zoned sending land -- except that at least one development right must always stay with the sending parcel (it can never be reduced to zero), and for larger tracts, at least one TDR must be retained for every 100 acres of sending-site land. In other words, a large landowner can monetize most, but never all, of a parcel's development potential through this mechanism.

On the receiving end, a parcel has to clear six specific criteria before it can accept transferred rights: it must carry RP (Residential Performance), R4 (Residential Planned Community), or RA zoning; it must be depicted on the county's official Receiving Areas Map; it must be served by roads, public sewer, and public water; and it must sit within the UDA and be identified in the Comprehensive Plan for residential use. That's a deliberately narrow list -- the county isn't allowing purchased density to land just anywhere, only in areas it has already planned for growth and can actually serve with infrastructure.

A parallel effort: the Conservation Easement Authority and a proposed PDR program

Alongside the TDR program, Frederick County's Conservation Easement Authority -- established in 2005 to help landowners protect farm and forest land, open space, scenic vistas, historic sites, and environmentally sensitive land -- has also managed the county's Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) effort since 2008, funded through a state grant. As of July 2025, the county reported 9,928 acres under conservation easement countywide. Unlike TDR, a PDR program pays a landowner directly (from county, grant, or donation funds) to permanently retire development rights, rather than relying on a private developer to buy them for use elsewhere -- a mechanism that doesn't depend on active developer demand in the UDA to work.

In April 2025, the Board of Supervisors directed county planning staff to bring a formal PDR zoning ordinance amendment to a Planning Commission public hearing, moving the county toward running TDR and PDR as two parallel, complementary preservation tools rather than TDR alone. As of this page's research, confirm directly with the county whether that ordinance amendment has since been adopted, and on what terms -- this was a live, in-progress policy step rather than a settled program at the time these sources were gathered. A separate, longer-running Agricultural and Forestal District program (a voluntary, tax-benefit-oriented land classification, distinct from both TDR and PDR) covered 12,942 acres across 10 districts as of January 2023, giving Frederick landowners a third, independent preservation option beyond the two development-rights programs.

What this means for you, whichever side of the county you're on

If you own or are buying RA-zoned rural land, this toolkit gives you real, county-sanctioned options beyond simply farming or eventually subdividing: selling development rights through TDR, applying for a conservation easement or (once finalized) direct PDR payment through the Conservation Easement Authority, or petitioning to join an Agricultural and Forestal District for a tax benefit -- each with different tradeoffs in cash timing, permanence, and eligibility. If instead you're evaluating land inside the UDA for higher-density development, confirm whether it's designated on the Receiving Areas Map and whether achieving your target density would require purchasing TDRs from a sending-site landowner -- a real added cost and negotiation step beyond standard land acquisition. Either way, confirm the current, in-force terms of all three programs directly with Frederick County Planning and Development before committing to a plan built around any of them.