Gary Van Dyke, a large animal veterinarian who lives in the village of Churchtown, began discussing land preservation with farmers in Caernarvon Township more than a decade ago.

"We talked about how we could do something different here," he recalled. "We can't afford the infrastructure that goes along with sprawl."

That "something different" has developed into one of the most successful township preservation programs in the county.

Just in the past two years, Caernarvon has spent about $200,000 helping the county's Agricultural Preserve Board and the Lancaster Farmland Trust preserve five farms and other open space in the township.

Other townships — most notably Penn, Warwick and West Hempfield — also have helped farmers and the countywide preservation organizations save farms.

With county revenue for farmland preservation shrinking, preservationists see municipal participation as an alternative way to target key farms.

"We think other townships should do more along that line," said Karen Martynick, director of the Farmland Trust. "It really does give the township more say in what's preserved, but not necessarily more work to do."To help spur more activity in the townships, the Lancaster County Commissioners last year for the first time offered a $500,000 matching grant to those municipalities that help save farmland.

This year, the commissioners allocated another $300,000.

"The municipal challenge grant will stretch the county's farmland preservation budget and help develop partnerships with townships to give them direct input into which farms will be preserved," said Matt Knepper, who directs the county's Preserve Board.

Typically, townships contribute $40,000 to $50,000 toward the full easement purchase price of a farm.

The county, the Farmland Trust or the state picks up the rest.

By reinforcing a strong preservation program already in place in several townships, the commissioners hope to encourage similar initiatives elsewhere.

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Van Dyke, who recently was re-elected one of Caernarvon's three supervisors, began discussing preservation with the Farmland Trust in 2001.

He said his thought at the time was, "We need to be prepared with agricultural preservation so we can hold our own when the big boys (out-of-area developers) come" to Caernarvon, which adjoins fast-developing Chester County.

Van Dyke persuaded the Chester County Solid Waste Authority's Lanchester Landfill, which he can see looming above the Welsh Mountains about three miles from his house, to donate to the trust.

He and other individuals began contributing to a Caernarvon Preservation Fund associated with the Farmland Trust.

Then the township established its own land preservation fund to complement the Caernarvon Fund. One-third of Lanchester's annual tipping fees — $227,000 — swelled the township fund.

In 2007, the township created an agricultural advisory committee — six farmers and Van Dyke — to advise the supervisors on agricultural issues.

And then, with virtually the entire township on board, the supervisors began contributing funds that helped save Caernarvon's farms and open space.

"We can't put too much money into a program that will save the taxpayer money," Van Dyke said. He claims developed land costs the township much more in services than farmland.

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Penn Township, which is located east and south of Manheim, is the only other county municipality that has spent money directly to preserve farms.

Since 2007, it has contributed $370,000 to help the county and state save eight farms containing nearly 500 acres.

Township manager Dave Kratzer said the township is committed to doing what it can to preserve pieces of farmland "in an effort to minimize land use conflicts between active farming operations and other land uses."

In addition, the Manheim Auto Auction, which parks thousands of cars on former farmland in Penn Township, has contributed a total of $1.2 million to preserve township farms.

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Since most townships don't have a landfill or an auto auction to help save land, an alternative preservation plan is slowly gaining in popularity here.

Warwick Township has put much of its farmland preservation effort into TDRs, a transfer of development rights from farmland to land set aside for growth.

Warwick creates and sells TDRs to businesses — the first was Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center — that want to build in the township's campus industrial zoning district.

Then the township uses that money to preserve farms.

Since the early 1990s, Warwick has saved 20 farms and more than 1,300 acres of farmland through the TDR program — more than any other county in the state.

Funds received from TDR sales are used to match money from the county's Preserve Board and the Farmland Trust when they purchase farms. The addition of local money can give a boost to one farm on a lengthy list of aspirants for preservation.

Acreage preserved through TDRs represents about half of all the acreage saved in Warwick, according to township manager Dan Zimmerman.

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West Hempfield and Manheim townships also have active TDR programs.

Penn Township is developing a TDR program and has banked 53 TDRs for eventual sale to developers.

West Lampeter and Mount Joy townships have passed TDR ordinances but have yet to activate them.

Caernarvon and surrounding municipalities have discussed establishing a regional TDR program. Manor Township has discussed a TDR plan.

Knepper said the county encourages townships to participate in preservation by any means possible.

"Unfortunately," he added, "there aren't any other townships (like Caernarvon and Penn) that have free money sitting around."

Directly contributing funds to support easement acquisition and establishing TDRs aren't the only methods townships have used to protect farmland.

In 2006, Caernarvon's supervisors decided they had more residentially-zoned space than they needed, so they rezoned 1,100 acres from residential to agricultural. Now there are more acres zoned agricultural in the township than there were a decade ago.

"We can't stop (residential) growth, but we need agricultural growth, too," Van Dyke said.

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Other townships also have rezoned land to agriculture. During the last five years, townships rezoned about 4,370 acres to agriculture, while rezoning only 316 acres from agriculture to another zoning district.

Most of the new agricultural acreage lies in Caernarvon, Conestoga, Rapho and Colerain townships. Nearly half of the total was rezoned in Conestoga Township early this year.

"These large rezonings represent a long-term municipal commitment to agriculture," observed county planning director James Cowhey.

But preceding any of these initiatives, the original township agricultural zoning and later agricultural security areas set the stage.

Without zoning and security areas, the current preservation program would not have been possible.

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East Donegal Township established the first agricultural zoning ordinance in the county in 1976. Other townships soon followed, and all townships had ordinances by the mid-1990s.

Zoning for agriculture gave local officials an opportunity to nudge new building into already developed areas.

Pennsylvania authorized establishment of agricultural security areas in 1981. Security areas limit government's ability to condemn farmland and enact nuisance laws that restrict farming. They also allow farmers to apply to sell their development rights to the Preserve Board.

East Lampeter Township was one of a handful of townships to hold out against ag security areas. When East Lampeter's supervisors last spring lost a court battle to prevent Amish farmers from creating a security area, other holdout townships adopted the policy.

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Some townships have expanded their security areas in recent years. Caernarvon, for example, added 648 acres to its 6,600-acre security area in 2006.

If the townships had not established ag zoning and security areas as a base, experts say, the preservation movement would have stalled.

"We couldn't have preserved nearly as much land as we have without the underlying effective agriculture zoning that covers nearly two-thirds of the county," said Tom Daniels, a University of Pennsylvania professor and former director of the county's Agricultural Preserve Board.

"Township supervisors and planning commissions deserve credit for maintaining that zoning and protecting farms."

jbrubaker@lnpnews.com