Rappahannock County
“Rappahannock County was among the eight jurisdictions
statewide that Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced this week would receive
fiscal-year 2014 farmland preservation grants. The eight localities to receive
the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) grants
must use the funds to preserve farmland within their boundaries through local
Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs, which compensate landowners who
work with localities to preserve their land permanently by voluntarily placing
a perpetual conservation easement on it.
VDACS allocated $149,678 each to the counties of Albemarle,
Clarke, Fauquier, Isle of Wight, James City and Stafford, and the city of
Virginia Beach. Rappahannock County will receive an $11,000 grant. The
allocations total a little more than $1.058 million, bringing the total
allocation of state matching funds to $8.68 million since 2008, when PDR funds
were first distributed.
Rappahannock’s fiscal-year 2014 distribution follows a
$50,000 PDR grant the county received last year; the grant funds for both last
year and this year have already been matched by the Rappahannock County
Conservation Alliance (RCCA), says county administrator John McCarthy.
This is the seventh time that the state has provided state
matching funds for certified local PDR programs. Of the 22 local PDR programs
in Virginia, 18 have received local funding over the past few years. To date,
more than 6,700 acres on 49 farms in 12 localities have been permanently
protected in part with $6 million of these funds.”
~Writes Rappahannock
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