In 2005, Burlington County won the County Leadership in Conservation Award from the Trust for Public Land and the National Association of Counties. In response, County Freeholder William S. Haines, Jr., a long-time advocate of smart growth, made the following observation: “ Great places don’t just happen.” Indeed, in Burlington County, the creation of sustainable, livable communities has involved vision, commitment and innovation.

Paddlers can travel between Burlington County parks using the Rancocas Creek Canoe Trail.

In 1985, Burlington County adopted the first farmland preservation program in the State of New Jersey. Acquisitions were initially funded with bond issues. But in 1996, a voter referendum approved a two-cent property tax, providing a stable, long-term source of preservation funding. Two years later, the voters doubled the tax to four cents per $100 of assessed value. In 2006, the voters extended the four-cent tax, providing an estimated $412 million in preservation funding. As of 2007, the Farmland Preservation Report estimated that Burlington County had preserved 49,382 acres of land, making it the sixth most successful locally-operated farmland preservation program in the country. This is a particularly impressive record considering that Burlington County is located within the most densely populated state in the union only 20 miles east of Philadelphia.

The municipalities of Burlington County have also individually distinguished themselves in farmland preservation. Three quarters of Burlington County’s townships have adopted special preservation taxes and several of these communities have increased and/or extended these taxes through the years.

Burlington County townships have also pioneered innovative farmland preservation techniques including TDR or transfer of development rights programs. In TDR, developers are allowed to concentrate development in areas appropriate for growth in return for preserving farmland and other open space. In 1995, Lumberton Township adopted the first TDR program under the State’s Burlington County TDR Demonstration Act. In 1998, Chesterfield Township adopted a TDR program that allowed developers to build a 1,200-dwelling unit smart-growth village while preserving most of the remaining unprotected farmland in the entire township.

Preserved farmland in Burlington County is generally located in the northernmost townships while preserved natural areas tend to be located in the southern two thirds of the County, the area that lies within the New Jersey Pinelands. The one-million-acre Pinelands region spans all or portions of seven counties and 52 municipalities. Due to its rich biodiversity and unique agriculture, this region was designated as the country’s first National Reserve in 1978, as a U.S. Biosphere Reserve in 1983 and as an International Biosphere Reserve in 1988. In 1980, the State of New Jersey adopted the Pinelands Regional Comprehensive Plan and all communities within the planning area amended their zoning to implement the required growth restrictions and facilitate an ambitious TDR program which had preserved almost 56,000 acres throughout the region by 2007.

Roughly half of the Pinelands portion of Burlington County is already protected by an assortment of government agencies and private, non-profit organizations. The largest of the preserved landholdings is the Wharton State Forest which occupies much of three townships and features a now-restored village surrounding the 1766 Batsto Iron Works. Three other state forests also contribute to Burlington County’s open space, including the Byrne State Forest, which incorporates the historic Whitesbog plantation, where blueberries were first cultivated 100 years ago. Rancocas State Park adds another 1,252 acres of open space as well as a replica of a Native American village in the 1600s which is the venue for an annual festival of Native American music, performance and crafts.

Burlington County is protecting open space in a park system that takes maximum advantage of historic as well as natural resources. Burlington’s biggest county park is Historic Smithville Park, which protects the surroundings of a model industrial town that once manufactured high-wheeled bicycles and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The County has also targeted parcels on Rancocas Creek for preservation and is working with the Rancocas Conservancy to extend a canoe trail that paddlers can already travel for 14 miles, passing two county parks along the way.

New Jersey’s final landscape will be permanently determined in a matter of decades. Burlington County is demonstrating how to manage the growth process and create a reasonable balance between the city and the countryside. As Freeholder Haines observed, it doesn’t just happen.