The Pinelands Commission and the Pinelands Development Credit Bank are two independent and separate state agencies whose functions work hand-in-hand to protect the Pinelands. The Pinelands Commission is charged under federal and state law to prepare, administer, update and implement its Comprehensive Management Plan, adopted in 1981. The Pinelands Development Credit (PDC) Program is part of the Pinelands Plan.

The Pinelands is a very large area, containing irreplaceable resources that can easily be destroyed. Because the Pinelands' sandy soils don't filter pollutants, water supplies are easily contaminated by septic systems, fertilizers, pesticides and run-off from heavily traveled roads. These are but a few of the impacts that go along with suburbanization. To prevent this from happening, the Pinelands Plan sets aside sensitive areas where the amount of development is limited and other areas where growth is encouraged.

The Pinelands Development Credits —one of the earliest and most successful examples of “Transferable Development Rights” (or “TDR)—offers a way in which property owners where land has limited development potential can benefit financially from development in the designated growth areas. Pinelands Development Credits from sensitive areas can be sold and used by buyers to build homes in the designated growth areas. Since the establishment of the PDC Bank twenty years ago, over 40,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land and farmland have been preserved through the Pinelands Development Credit Certificate program alone.