Moving Development Rights Around to Hit Land Use Goals, with Nick Bratton

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls welcomes to the podcast Nick Bratton, who works as a program manager in King County, Washington State, coordinating and promoting market-based conservation through the voluntary transfer of development rights. As an incentive-based approach to land use, transfer of development rights (TDR) programs enable property owners to sell the development rights on some of their land while setting aside some of the land so it remains undeveloped natural space. TDRs have great potential to facilitate both land conservation and residential or commercial development, all without the need for government funding. Walls and Bratton talk about Bratton’s work in King County’s TDR program, his observations on TDRs more broadly, and what he views as factors for success with such programs. References and recommendations: “Jazz Cruise Series Vol. 1” album by Kelvin Momo; https://open.spotify.com/album/05PU51SCYUrmmFgV6Qvmvs Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/