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This fall, Prince George's County planning officials are asking south county residents to consider which areas of undeveloped land, especially in the southeastern rural tier, should be targeted for preservation in the future.

Officials with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission are holding three focus groups this month about the proposed Priority Preservation Master Plan — the first two already took place, and the final one is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight at the Patuxent River 4H Center in Upper Marlboro — and plan to hold more public forums this fall.

Although development in Prince George's County's rural tier is already limited by zoning laws, M-NCPPC officials say the county will be eligible for more state funds for land preservation by creating the new master plan.

"The areas of the county that are already rural in character and already have agricultural land in them are the areas we're trying to identify," said Fatimah Hasan, project manager for the Priority Preservation Area Master Plan and a project coordinator in the Special Projects Section of M-NCPPC.

According to the state's Agricultural Stewardship Act of 2006, counties are required to put together a planning document outlining priority preservation areas, or PPAs, to qualify for additional preservation funds from the state. The funds come from a 5 percent tax on the sale of farmland. Without a PPA master plan, Prince George's County keeps 33 percent of that tax for preservation programs; with a PPA master plan, the county would get 75 percent of that tax back.

The proposed master plan would designate PPAs in the southeastern rural tier, the Bowie area and around the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and Patuxent Research Refuge in the northwestern section of the county.

During an Aug. 11 meeting with residents at the Baden Volunteer Fire Department, Prince George's County Farm Bureau President Yates Clagett, who coordinates several of the county's land preservation programs through the Soil Conservation District office, expressed his support for creating the master plan.

"It doesn't mean rezoning, just where to target money," he said.

Claggett said he thought the greatest challenge in creating the master plan will be convincing skeptical landowners that being a part of a PPA will not place any additional limits on land use.

Calling the PPA a "benign" designation, Claggett stressed to attendees at the Aug. 11 meeting that landowners included in the PPA could still sell their land to developers, but that it would make more money available to compensate residents who no longer wanted to farm but wanted to keep their land undeveloped.

Joanne Flynn, who has a 128-acre farm in Baden that would be included within the proposed PPA master plan and attended the Aug. 11 meeting, said she could understand why landowners would be fearful of a new designation, but said that based on what she learned and knew previously about state preservation programs, did not believe being part of the PPA would add any new restrictions.

"It's the right thing. We need to have the program so we can recoup more of the tax transfer dollars," Flynn said after the meeting. She added that she recently entered into a state preservation program for her property.

Hasan said they hope to present the master plan to the Prince George's County District Council for final approval by 2012.