Summit County’s transferable development rights (TDR) program protects Summit County’s natural resources by allowing development rights to be voluntarily transferred from rural, backcountry “sending areas” to urban “receiving areas.” The TDR maps below identify sending and receiving areas.

For planning and administrative purposes, Summit County is divided into four planning basins (the Lower Blue, Snake River, Tenmile and Upper Blue basins). As part of the Countywide TDR Program, official TDR sending and receiving areas maps for each of the four basins have been adopted. The maps designate neutral, receiving, sending and optional areas in each basin.
Neutral, receiving, sending, and optional areas are currently defined as follows:

• Neutral Areas: Those parcels that have been determined to not be suitable for transferring development rights from or to, and therefore not eligible to send or receive density.
• Receiving Areas: Those parcels potentially suitable for transferring development rights to. A parcel may not actually be used as a receiving area unless it receives approval to increase the permitted density through a zoning amendment, Development Code.
• Sending Areas: Those parcels suitable for transferring development rights from.
• Optional Areas: Optional areas are only applicable in the Lower Blue Basin. An optional area refers to those parcels that have been determined to be suitable for sending or receiving development rights, and therefore eligible to send or receive density. However, an optional area does not enable the parcel to both send and receive development rights, only one or the other.

TDR Maps

(PDF format)

• Official Upper Blue Basin TDR Sending and Receiving Areas Map
• Official Tenmile Basin TDR Sending and Receiving Areas Map
• Official Snake River Blue Basin TDR Sending and Receiving Areas Map
• Official Lower Blue Basin TDR Sending and Receiving Areas Map