Author: jayson-whitehead

A week after the county Board of Supervisors decided to consider changing the land use tax program, local farmers are still distraught. Since 1975, Albemarle has granted landowners a tax deferral for a minimum of five acres that meets prescribed standards of agricultural use. Basically, the land must be used for the sale of crops and/or livestock, or be in an approved soil conservation program.

For a small farmer like Kathryn Russell, it can make for a patchwork of tax statuses. Her Majesty Farms falls into various categories, with 19 of 21 acres falling under the deferral system. As part of the land use tax, she must pay full tax on her house and at least one surrounding acre. With the reduced rate, she paid $2,702 for the 21 acres. “I would have to pay twice that much if I didn’t have land use,” Russell says.

Small farmer Kathryn Russell says that the county should extend land use tax to smaller parcels. “You can do a whole lot on two acres,” she says.

Meanwhile, on an adjoining four acres on which she rotationally grazes sheep, she must pay full price, which came to $900 last year. Russell also has another five acres on which she built a house that she plans to sell. While she grazes cattle on much of that land, it is not put under land use because of the presence of the house, which makes for a tax bill of $3,100 a year.

One supervisor has proposed that farmers put their land in open space conservation easement, which bars the owner from ever building on the land, in order to qualify for the land use program. But because many farmers rent the land they farm, that measure would bring its own problems.

“If land use is changed, then they can’t afford to rent to me,” says Dan Holsinger, a dairy farmer in Augusta County, which has a land use tax system similar to Albemarle’s. Holsinger says he can’t afford to buy any more land at today’s prices, especially when he is barely scraping by. “Land use is the one thing that keeps me in business.”

Another reason given for scrapping the tax deferral is the fear that the exemption is being exploited by landowners looking for a tax break.

“Folks may not be following the letter of the law,” says county assessor Bruce Woodzell. He has eight assessors at his disposal, many of which spend a good deal of time out in the county assessing land, and as they do so, checking the land use. Woodzell estimates that assessors view every parcel in the county every 18 months. That will be changing as reports are now required on an annual basis, instead of biennially as they were before.

“They won’t be in the field as much as they used to be,” he says, estimating that it may take up to three years for a parcel to be inspected. Theoretically, that would increase the opportunity for abuse. Still, he cannot remember when was the last violation of land use.

As a result, farmers like Russell reject the suggestion that the land use tax system be changed. In fact, she thinks it should be broadened.

“If [supervisors] were really for small farms like they say they are,” Russell says, “they should extend land use to be helpful to those who work on small projects. You can do a whole lot on two acres.”

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On April 25, 2008, R.S. Glass—the owner of the Zion Crossroads trailer park—mailed a letter to all his tenants. The site of 30 mobile homes would be closing, it said, due to a failing water treatment facility (privately owned by Glass) that was leaking too much copper and ore into a nearby stream. Rather than spending the money to comply with the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the owners were regretfully kicking their tenants out. “All trailers and property…must be removed on or before October 31, 2008,” the letter stated.

The announcement was crushing for the residents who live at the crossing of routes 250 and 15, just east of the Albemarle County line in Fluvanna County. While they pay Glass $250 for the land their trailer rests on, many of the tenants are on the low end of the economic scale—they work at the Preston Shell as cashiers or drive a forklift at a nearby lumberyard. The trailer park is 41 years old, and some of the trailers look to be that ancient. As a result, some must simply be abandoned.

“Maybe I should have notified [the residents], but maybe then they would have moved out,” says Zion Crossroads trailer park owner R.S. Glass.

Other trailers are newer and can be moved, but at costs in the thousands of dollars. The news may have been the worst for those who purchased their trailers in the last few years. Ernest Jackson, for instance, has lived in the trailer park for 15 years, but only last year bought an additional trailer when his daughter and his young grandson moved into his old one. Like other park residents, he is forlorn and feels betrayed, if not outraged.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have bought this place,” Jackson says, estimating that he paid around $18,000 for the newer trailer. Many residents think owner R.S. Glass must have known earlier that the private treatment plant was violating water purity standards.

“I found out last month,” says the 81-year-old Glass. In addition to the trailer park, he and his wife own half of the intersection known as Zion Crossroads. A restaurant sits on one corner, a mart on the other. “The state is closing me up. I’m not doing it.”

“They’ve known we had a problem for six years,” says Keith Fowler, a permit manager at the DEQ. In September 2002, the DEQ first cited Glass.

“[T]here is a reason to believe copper and possibly zinc are present…in concentrations that may be toxic when discharged,” the notice read in part. As a result, the DEQ would incorporate limits when the permit was reissued in November 8, 2004. When that permit was issued, Glass was put on official notice that he had four years to comply.

“They probably had as much knowledge of there being a problem as possible,” Fowler says.

During the four years since, Glass only submitted reports saying he was monitoring the copper and zinc levels but gave no indication that he was doing anything about it. So the DEQ contacted the landowner at the beginning of this year reminding them that they had until November ’08 to comply. That’s when Glass informed them that he would be closing the park.

“Maybe I should have notified them, but maybe then they would have moved out,” Glass says of his residents. When the park closes in November, Glass is likely to reap a windfall. A Lowe’s is about to open just down the road. Behind that is a Wal-Mart distribution center. Located just 12 miles outside of Charlottesville and right off I-64, a spot like his is a guaranteed target for development as the surrounding area continues to grow.

By that point, the trailer park residents will be long gone. Jackson is trying to keep from having to move into another trailer park but refuses to abandon his two mobile homes.

“I ain’t leaving nothing,” he says. “Before I leave—to tell you the truth—I will take an axe and break both of them up.”

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On Wednesday, May 14, the county Board of Supervisors voted to unanimously “re-validate” the Land Use Taxation Program while also agreeing to study substantial changes to the program. Under the current system, landowners are allowed to significantly lower taxes on undeveloped land used for agricultural uses, while only having to pay full taxes on their home and the surrounding two acres.

Many farmers argue that this allows them to stay in business by avoiding costly taxes. Nearly 60 percent of county acreage—256,000 acres—is in the program. While the fair market value of these parcels is $3.026 billion, the land use value is $376 million, according to a critic of the program. As a result, there will be $18.8 million in deferred taxes this year.

Supervisor David Slutzky argued that the county should only grant land use status to property in conservation easements, drawing boos from the pro-land use crowd.

For some, that money could be used to help a county that sometimes strains to provide adequate infrastructure. Others point to too many potential abuses of the system—until it was rezoned, a 63-acre parcel that’s part of the North Pointe development only required $132 in 2005 taxes. Currently, a land use property owner who changes zoning on a property must pay the full value of taxes going back five years. Some think that should be extended to 10 years.

Supervisor David Slutzky argued that the county should only grant land use status to property in conservation easements, which would nullify all development rights in perpetuity. He urged landowners in attendance at Lane Auditorium to place their land in conservation easements. Many booed in response.

For a land owner like Clara Belle Wheeler, this suggestion is downright offensive. “This is about power and control,” she says. “This is not about me.” Even though her 77-acre parcel is currently in land use tax, she says she is speaking up for the farmer who has no disposable income and who may need to sell land at some point. If the only way to avoid full taxes is conservation easement, then they will have no option if times get tough.

“I could go stand out in the middle of 64 but that would not be smart,” she says, using metaphor to describe the conundrum. “Take away the land use tax for these people and they’ll have to sell to developers.”

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At the same time that Charlottesville’s homeless population is growing, so are the efforts to help them. After conflicts with city government and lack of funds have forced the Hope Community Center to close a homeless shelter, another attempt to help the homeless took place Saturday, May 17, when people congregated in Kegler’s for the Charity Bowl-a-Thon to Help Homeless.

As organizer Angela Burruss-Terrell explains, one weekend she was in Washington, D.C., where homelessness is rampant. Seeing all the destitute and needy spurred her to come up with a way to care for those in our area.

Angela Burruss-Terrell organized the bowl-a-thon. “I think we all need to get together,” she says. “I really do.”

“I wanted to do something for the homeless,” she says. So she thought of a bowl-a-thon to raise money and approached her pastor, Dr. Lehman D. Bates II of Ebenezer Baptist Church, for his support. He in turn approached Mayor Dave Norris, who proudly lent his endorsement and support.

“This event will raise funds and awareness for an important cause,” he wrote in a March 23 letter, “engaging people of faith in service and ministry to those of our neighbors who have no place to call home.”

With those recommendations, Burruss-Terrell hit the pavement. “I just went to the businesses to see who could give me what,” she says. Breaking the sponsorship into six levels—with $1,000 as the top and $50 the low—any amount therein bought a bowling lane for three hours. “So far I’ve come up with $3,000,” she says. “For the first one, that isn’t bad.”

Make that $3,050. While talking in the parking lot of the J.F. Bell funeral home, she received another donation from the morticians themselves. They don’t even want to bowl, they said, just to help out the homeless, some of whom regularly sit across the street on the steps of Ebenezer church.

That’s how Burruss-Terrell got involved with helping the less fortunate in the first place. Her church started to feed people and take them over to the Salvation Army a few blocks away. Ebenezer joined with another church on Rugby Road to take part in PACEM’s evening shelter program this winter. Now there’s the bowl-a-thon.

“This is going to be an annual event,” Burruss-Terrell says. “All the proceeds we’re going to save.” According to the flyer she made, funds will go “to assist with medical and personal care, childcare, bus fare and assistance with hygiene and clothing, and the establishment of a permanent shelter and resource center.”

The last part sounds a lot like the much-ballyhooed First Street project off the Downtown Mall that is still waiting for remodeling and construction to start. According to Burruss-Terrell, they already have an architect lined up for what would be a day shelter and resource center for the poor.

Of course, it would take more than one bowl-a-thon to raise enough money for something like that. So in the meantime, she will have to be content with a few thousand dollars to feed and clothe the homeless who cross her path. There are enough people like her trying to do something, anything, for the have-nots that it’s hard to keep up with.

“I think we all need to get together,” Burruss-Terrell says. “I really do.”

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