Homestead communities were built during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933-1939) to house struggling families affected by the Great Depression, to provide economic independence through subsistence and cooperative farming, and to establish new towns in rural America. There were four New Deal Homestead communities constructed in North Carolina: Penderlea Homesteads in Pender County, Roanoke Farms in Halifax County, Scuppernong Farms in Washington County, and Pembroke Farms in Robeson County. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the feasibility of a county-wide Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program in the North Carolina counties containing New Deal Homesteads. TDR is a mechanism where a property may turn their severed rights to develop into a tradable commodity that can then be sent to a different property, so that it may be developed beyond what is ordinarily allowed by local zoning codes. North Carolina’s rural places are threatened by an increasing population and therefore increased development encroaching on rural places. In 2009, the North Carolina General Assembly passed enabling legislation to allow counties and municipalities the option to create and enforce their own TDR programs. TDR programs have yet to be established in the state as of 2019. TDR has been effective in other states at protecting rural and historic resources while allowing necessary development to occur in a controlled manner. Open source Geographic Information System (GIS) data from the statewide data clearinghouse NC OneMap was used to create maps of environmental, historical, and political conditions of each county. This initial overview of existing data is one of the earliest steps in determining how a TDR program might operate in each location. Pender County was found to be the most likely to operate a successful TDR program, primarily due to the rapid growth being experienced in southeastern North Carolina.