TDRs Reconcile Conservation and Growth

Transferable development rights (TDRs) turn a binary land-use conflict into a marketed cooperation: rural landowners keep productive land and sell development capacity to growth zones, while developers concentrate housing where infrastructure already exists. The Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve shows a multi‑decade case where TDR trades preserved ~70,000 acres of farmland and unlocked housing capacity in designated zones via private transactions. — If scaled or adapted, TDR markets offer a politically palatable, incentive‑based tool to simultaneously preserve open space and increase housing supply, shifting the housing debate from morality and politics to design of property rights.