On the right track
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This is a reply to Mr. John Griffin's latest attack on land conservation in Fauquier County, i.e., the land-use evaluation tax, the conservation easement and the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR).
When the tax is reduced on open land, the tax on all the buildings on that land is not reduced. In fact, the tax on the buildings increases in exact proportion to the real estate taxes of all the other property owners in the county to compensate for the reduction of the taxes on the open land.
It is, essentially, the shifting of the tax from land to buildings, not from one class of people to another.
It is now universally recognized that taxing farmland at “fair market value” leads to its rapid conversion into subdivisions. Subdivisions = people = children = schools = higher taxes for everyone. Open land costs the county very little; people cost the county a lot.
This only became obvious to us here in Fauquier 40 years ago, when a developer's application to build 10,000 houses between Warrenton and the Rappahannock River was advertised and readily accepted by the public as a tax bonanza. Why wouldn't 10,000 houses bring in more tax revenue than 4,200 acres of open land?
The real picture only emerged after months of painstaking research in the county's tax books and the school system's budget.
Fauquier County has been on the right track ever since. It adopted the Land Use Evaluation Tax in 1972; at the same time, the first few farms went under conservation easements. PDRs followed 30 years later. By the end of this year, 100,000 acres, or one quarter of Fauquier's land, will be under easement or in parkland, or owned by the Nature Conservancy.
Every time a farm goes under easement, the whole region should rejoice.
Fauquier County contains the headwaters of many streams upon which hundreds of thousands of people downstream depend for their drinking water. What would New York City be today if the Adirondack Mountains had not been preserved many years ago? So don't begrudge tax credits for those who give up forever the development rights to their property. It might be a lot cheaper for the taxpayer than later on having to buy the land outright.
Mr. Griffin advocates assessing our land as some of our neighboring counties are assessed — but he doesn't say which ones. Rappahannock or Prince William? I suspect it is Prince William, once a county full of dairy farms with their wonderful brick barns, now standing,or rather falling down, in the midst of thousands of houses — grim reminders of happier days.
Hope Porter
Warrenton
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