Tunis Sweetman dreamed of becoming a dairy farmer. But he didn’t own land.

So he and his family rented land, and built a profitable business.
After 10 years, the Sweetmans wanted to establish a home farm,
but the price of land was skyrocketing in his area. Warwick, N.Y. is
prime territory for the sale of development rights. It is a fertile
valley in New York’s Orange County, just 90 minutes northwest of New York City, where selling land to development was generally more profitable than farming it.

Sounds daunting. Right?     

It was. The Sweetmans even considered relocating to the Midwest. But they wanted to stay because their business was already profitable plus their family was close. About that time the owner of a 108-acre farm that Tunis was renting wanted to sell. This was in January 1996.

As soon as New York finalized the state program in late 1996, the Sweetmans immediately applied for the sale. He negotiated terms of his easement, including a 15-acre farm complex for the family home, barn and future free stall and farm labor houses. The easement also included the right to make improvements and examine the boundaries of the farmstead every five years.

The Sweetman application was approved on the state's first review in April 1997.

A complicated, but coordinated closing

The Sweetmans organized their closing in June of 1998. That is, they actually organized three closings in one. Tunis purchased the farm from the landowner. He immediately sold the development rights for the entire 108 acres to the state. And he closed on a Farm Credit real estate loan.

The owner set the market value price at a little over $700,000. Tunis received development rights value from New York State of approximately $325,000, almost 50 percent of the land's market value. With savings, a Farm Credit mortgage and the development rights proceeds, the Sweetmans completed the deal.     

She agreed and Tunis went to work. At the time, neither the State of New York nor his local county had a program in place, but Tunis had a goal in mind. He worked tirelessly with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets and aggressively lobbied Orange County leaders for their support.

Editor's note: Of course, selling your development rights is a very personal decision. And not all landowners who consider selling their rights, actually do. Some decide the choice is not right for their business, perhaps because they are not satisfied with the buyers' offer. Perhaps they anticipate increased land values from encroaching population or industry. Perhaps they are unable to negotiate their preferred options. Or perhaps the time is simply not right for a decision of this magnitude.