Last night had all the makings of another knockdown, drag out stand off. Lane Auditorium was opened up to overflow and about 200 people filled the seats, most of them county residents there to support “land use tax.” There were boos, cheers and spontaneous mutterings. But when the proverbial smoke cleared, most members of the audience were cautiously optimistic: The Board of Supervisors opted not to tinker with the fundamentals of the land use tax.
Though the term sounds like the standard government mumbo jumbo, land use tax has become an incendiary catch phrase in county politics, dividing rural and urban residents. The bottom line is that it gives a tax break for land used for agriculture or forestry. Old MacDonald pays the full tax rate for his house, barn and a couple of acres around his house, but he only has to pay a fraction for the 50 acres he’s using for growing corn, hay and timber. The idea is that Mac will therefore be able to eke out a living by farming his property rather than having to sell it to a developer because the taxes are so high. Sixty percent of the county’s acreage is in the land use program.
But some growth area residents have resented the tax break, arguing that the $18.8 million that the county will forgo in 2008 increases the tax burden on them. More specifically, some like Crozet resident (and county Planning Commissioner) Tom Loach have charged that fat cat developers are just cutting hay on large tracts of land and paying only pennies until they develop it. For instance, much of the land that will be part of the megadevelopment North Pointe was under land use tax until it was rezoned in 2005, (though property owners have to pay rollback taxes going back five years when the land use is changed).
Considering the stagnant county budget, it’s little surprise that a program that “costs” almost $19 million in lost taxes would come under intense scrutiny. But county supervisors have been meaning to take another look at land use tax for a few years now, and it was going to bring out the rural masses no matter when it came up.
Supervisors were considering a revision, known as “Option 2,” that would have made it tougher to qualify for land use, though it wasn’t clear how much of an impact it would have. When it came time for the supervisors’ discussion, even those who had most wanted to take a closer look at the program couldn’t get behind it.
“I think a month ago, I was the one who threw us into this morass, because I wanted to pursue the discussion,” said Supervisor Ann Mallek, who along with all the other board members didn’t want to pursue Option 2. “I’m glad that we’ve had this time to really dig into this.”
What the Board instead will do is formally consider a “revalidation” program. When the county reassessed property biennially, the assessor’s staff would get out to every property during the two year window and make sure that those in land use were doing what they were supposed to. But last year, the county moved to annual assessments, and county Assessor Bruce Woodzell said that his staff would only be able to check property every three to five years. So with a revalidation program, those in land use tax would be required to send in a form every two years to confirm that they are still doing agriculture or forestry.
Even the local Farm Bureau supports revalidation. “Those who cannot meet [land use] criteria should not be eligible,” says Farm Bureau President Carl Tinder.
Several supervisors brought up the point that the county needs to do a better job explaining why it has the land use program. “Many other counties say what the purpose of the land use taxation program is,” said Supervisor Sally Thomas. “We don’t actually say that on our webpage. I’m not sure that we’ve ever expressed it.”
Yet despite the softened tones of last night’s meeting, the rhetoric can quickly return to an antagonistic Urban-Rural divide, with each side claiming to bear the tax burden for the other. Many rural area residents pointed out to this reporter that they pay taxes for infrastructure that they rarely use and that is necessitated by the subdivision dwellers, while it’s left to the rural land owner to tend the bucolic countryside that attracted so many to Albemarle County in the first place.
After the Board’s decision, a conversation was struck in an effort to quell the divisive chatter, led by Jeff Werner of the Piedmont Environmental Council—a group that has shown strong support for small farmers through its Eat Local campaign, yet at the same time draws the ire of the Farm Bureau for supporting environmental protections that inhibit some rural development. He talked with Tinder, former Farm Bureau president Joe Jones and White Hall resident Bud Smith, proposing that the county spend the money that it dedicates to economic development to agricultural development instead.
It was an idea that the others couldn’t dispute. As Jones said, “If they want to preserve the rural character of the land, they need to protect the rural characters that are on it.”