Mechanisms for Strengthing IC's

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@cpeo.org>]

[Here is another comment I received on Institutional Controls.  This one is from Rick Tomlinson --Aimee Houghton]

I read with much interest the excellent comments that were presented last
month on the issue of Institutional Controls. While the period for comment
has pasted, I did want to share one idea with you.

One mechanism for strengthening an institutional control may be to transfer
any and all remaining development rights to a third-party organization such
as an environmental non-profit organization. Consequently, not only would
there be a deed restriction on the property, but the rights for any future
development would be held by a completely different party. Therefore, even
if the deed restriction was somehow "overlooked", the property owners could
not legally proceed with a change in land use unless they re-acquired the
development right.

In order to maintain such an organization, one might propose that the
current property owner pay a fee based upon the present day "cost savings"
(since they are only postponing the remediation costs until such a time as
the value of an alternative land use outweighs the remediation costs).
Additionally, the organization would then be able to sell the development
right back to any future property owner when and if they wanted to pursue an
alternative land use for the property. In this fashion, the "market" would
determine the value of the development right (of course this may be never).

In any event, the essence of the idea is not how such an organization might
be structured but rather the concept of transferring development rights to a
third party organization as a means to strengthen an institutional control
AND to introduce a market-based system for the property owner to change the
institutional control in the future.

I hope that this adds to your discussions. If anyone is interested in
further clarification or specific examples of how this type of system has
been used for other purposes, please feel free to contact me.

Rick Tomlinson
(916) 920-9580