Town Meeting voters will be asked to allow the owners of land in two environmentally sensitive areas of town to sell their “development rights” to landowners in less sensitive areas who want to build more intensively than current zoning allows.

The long term goal of a bylaw being proposed by the Planning Board is to protect the more environmentally vulnerable areas of town, while at the same time allowing more intensive development in areas that could benefit from development.

For instance, under such “transferrable development rights,” a landowner in the Maple Springs area could sell his right to develop to a developer with plans for a big commercial project on Cranberry Highway in East Wareham. Just as is the case when such development rights are sold to a conservation group, the Maple Springs land would continue to belng to the original owner but could never be developed.

"It's allowing for higher density" in some areas while protecting others,” said George Barrett, Planning Board chair. "You could create a village. You could redevelop villages."

The Planning Boardwill hold a public hearing to allow residents to weigh in on the idea, on Monday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Cafeteria.

The bylaw designates land as “sending” areas, where owners would be encouraged to sell development rights and thus allow the property to remain undeveloped.

Wareham Village, Onset Village, Parker Mills, Tihonet, East Wareham along Cranberry Highway, and Tobey Road are all identified as “receiving” areas, where land-owners would be eligible to buy rights and thus develop more intensively.

Even after the sale of development rights, any proposed development project would still have to go through the town’s normal permitting process.

Such a bylaw has been in the works for years.

"It was moving forward back in 2005, but the political climate wasn't such that it [could go anywhere]," said Barrett.

Multiple parties own land in the areas from which development rights could be transferred, but the largest landowner is the A.D. Makepeace Company.

Linda Burke of A.D. Makepeace says that the passage of the bylaw has been held up in large part due to a misunderstanding of the intent of it.

"I think there were some misconceptions about the benefit to the sending area property owner," says Burke. "There were concerns expressed that this was just going to benefit the A.D. Makepeace Company, and that just isn't true."

According to Burke, the A.D. Makepeace Company worked with the Town of Plymouth on a Transfer of Development Rights bylaw, which passed in 2006.

"We used our TDR bylaw in conjunction with our open space bylaw" to preserve 2,300 acres of land, said Plymouth Town Planner Lee Hartman. "We find it a very successful tool to protect land and allow development."