BUFFALO TWP - Township supervisors on Thursday added a new zoning district to help preserve farmland.

The unanimous vote created the Rural Residential and Agricultural District.

Dan Przybylek of the township planning commission said the RA district would help protect and promote the continuation of farming in areas with prime soils.

"The planning commission, the board of supervisors and the residents of Buffalo Township have all made it known that this new district is needed," Przybylek told the board Wednesday night.

The district would also separate agricultural land uses and activities from incompatible residential, commercial and industrial development and public facilities.

The new district would allow farmers to conduct small-scale business operations on their property to support the rural economy and would promote and protect agricultural security areas.

Land in agricultural security areas is protected from newly enacted nuisance ordinances dealing with noise, smell and operating farm machinery at night.

Przybylek said the new RA district would also control development density in the township by establishing a maximum number of lots based on the size of a landowner's property.

For instance, property less than 4 acres cannot have more than two lots.

Property from 75 acres to less than 100 acres can have a maximum eight lots and is the largest property size that can be subdivided without the owner having to go before the board of supervisors to request a change in zoning.

Przybylek said more than 400 surveys were collected from residents during the Buffalo Community Days last May. He said the results of those surveys indicated the residents of the township favored a new district that would give the supervisors more control of developers that want to build in the township.

Chairwoman Linda Stover said the planning commission had done a separate survey with farmers who said they also favored keeping Buffalo Township rural.

Buffalo had at least one housing development forced on it in the past year because the township's ordinances weren't strong enough to prevent unwanted development.

Buffalo is currently working with Clinton Township on a joint comprehensive plan to establish the rules and regulations the growing region will use to make sure the townships are able to keep development under control.

"The residents are interested in maintaining the rural atmosphere in Buffalo Township," Przybylek said. "We know we can't block development but we can certainly control it. What we are proposing is nothing that hasn't been court-tested."

Supervisor Herb Henry said the ordinance needed to be adopted for future protection against development.

"We will be able to limit the size of the lots in the future after this is adopted," Henry said.

At the same time, township officials want to allow current farm owners to sell their property to interested developers if the owners are no longer interested in farming the land.

"I have spoken to some major land owners in the township and they agree this is a good thing," Przybylek said.

Przybylek said there are landowners in the township whose only means of a pension is to sell their land. Other landowners need to sell because they can no longer afford to pay the taxes on the land.

Supervisor Al Roenigk said although he respects the amount of work the planning commission has put into the new district, he didn't understand how giving farmers more options on how they sell their land was a way of preserving farmland.

"Currently anything over four lots needs to be rezoned," Roenigk said. "That is how we control growth."

Roenigk added that he thought the district would help preserve the rural feel of the township and that he had no problem with developers building on smaller lots.

Supervisor Mark Shoaf said restricting the number of lots that can be built on former farmlands would dissuade some developers from building, thus providing another way of controlling growth.

Donna Davis, vice chairwoman of the planning commission, said the things that eat up the most land in new development are water and sewer lines.

"Maybe the best we can hope for is to keep population density down and limit the rezoning we do with water and sewer," she said.