MC body: Guard farms, forests

By Jane DeGeorge
Eagle Reporter


Published: September 18, 2008

Since 1950, Madison County has lost about 735 acres of working farmland every year, according to a county-appointed committee report. The county’s forests are also diminishing – with more than 20,000 acres lost to development in the past 24 years, the report states.

The group – made up of local residents chosen by the board of supervisors – has spent the past year developing a local “purchase of development rights” program in an attempt to stop this trend.

The program – called the Madison Farm and Forest Protection Program – would allow the county to purchase a piece of land’s development rights that have been voluntary offered to the county by the property owner. (Even after a property owner has sold the development rights to their land, they continue to maintain control over their farm or forest business, according to the committee’s report.)

The program aims to preserve the county’s farm and forest land while protecting its rural character and quality of life and promoting “agritainment” – also known as “agritourism” – as an important economic benefit to the county, the report states. These objectives are in line with many of the goals outlined in the county’s comprehensive plan, which the supervisors last approved in 2006, according to the report.

(The county’s comprehensive plan is a state-mandated planning document that includes the county’s goals, objectives and strategies regarding its controlled development.)

Besides protecting Madison County’s scenic assets, supporting agriculture in the community is also beneficial to the county’s economy, according to one of the committee’s members, Wolftown resident Beth Pastore.

For every $1 that residentially developed land provides to the community in terms of taxes paid to the county, it costs the local government about $1.30 to provide its various public services, such as schools and law enforcement, according to committee representatives. On the other hand, for every $1 that farms – even in the land use program – provide to the county in taxes, it costs the county about 34 cents to provide public services.

(These statistics were obtained by the committee from a cost of community services study by the American Farmland Trust, according to Pastore. Numbers for nearby Culpeper County were used, as a study specific to Madison County was unavailable, she said.)

“It’s an economic decision for the county, but it is not immediately obvious because people tend to think any development adds to the tax base,” the Wolftown resident told The Eagle in a Sept. 11 phone interview.

Lands ranked

The ordinance would establish a “ranking system” of properties whose owners have applied to take part in the program – which committee members stress is “completely voluntary.” This system allows the different pieces of land to be “fairly” compared by officials in order to determine which properties should be given priority, according to Pastore.

“We want to be fair and entirely open…and be able to objectively say this farm is going to be given a higher ranking,” she said.

The proposed “ranking system” would judge a land based on a variety of criteria including its productivity, nearby water resources, size and its “threat of conversion to developed use.” The suggested ranking system is much more detailed than those included in other counties’ purchase of development rights programs, according to Pastore.

“We weren’t just using a ‘boiler plate’ [ordinance], we added things specific to the unique Madisonian agricultural and forest resources,” the committee’s chairman Peter Rice told The Eagle.

The “ranking system” gives preference to “working farms and forests” that are “actively contributing to a family’s income,” according to Pastore, adding that the committee agreed that the program is intended for people “who live here and work here and are adding to the community” as opposed to those who “have land here they come to on the weekend,” she said.

The committee’s report explains that purchase of development rights programs “target working landowners, broadening the conservation of lands for farms and forest owners who might not be able to afford to donate [a conservation] easement or fully benefit from the tax benefits” provided to those who donate easements.

Funding unclear

Both Pastore and Rice admit that finding the money to fund the program will be difficult.

“Adopting the ordinance is different from funding it,” Pastore said.

However, she noted that “if we are trying to preserve agriculture as an economic base for Madison County, we really need to put our money where our mouth is.”

The committee’s recommended ordinance states that the purchase price of a conservation easement would be determined by an appraisal of the property, although landowners may offer to donate at least a portion of the conservation easement price.

Possible local funding sources include a portion of sales tax income and money paid to the county as a result of “rollback” taxes. “Rollback” taxes – which totaled about $43,000 for this past fiscal year as of May 15, according to the committee’s report – refer to the taxes paid on properties that are taken out of the land use value taxation program.

The county’s land use program allows the county to tax certain pieces of property based on its “agricultural use value” – or the value of the crops that piece of land is able to produce – rather than its “fair market value” in order to help preserve agricultural lands by reducing participating property owners’ taxes, according to the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service Web site.

Property owners that change the use of their land to make it ineligible to be included in the land use program must pay back to the county five years of the taxes they had saved by having their property in land use, the Web site states.

Once a county has passed a purchase of development rights ordinance it is also eligible to apply and receive federal, state, foundation and private grants to support the program. A local Madison Conservation Fund group has already pledged $6,000 toward this program as part of a local match, the report states.
Committee members – which make up a “good cross section of the community” including farmers, local officials and those familiar with land use planning, according to Rice – include:

• Susan Cable.

• Madison County Planning Commissioner Jacki Eisenberg.

• Madison County Extension Agent Brad Jarvis.

• Joe Johnson.

• Madison County Administrator Lisa Kelley.

• Beth Pastore.

• Peter Rice.

• Mike Santucci of the Virginia Department of Forestry.

• Ralph Yowell.

In addition to establishing the Madison Farm and Forest Protection Program, the committee suggests officials look into expanding uses permitted in conservation- and agriculturally-zoned land, offering education workshops for farmers and residents about business planning and marketing and administering the Virginia Farm Link program, which connects retiring farmers with active farmers.

The group presented its report to the Madison County Board of Supervisors and the Madison County Planning Commission at the groups’ regularly scheduled Sept. 3 joint meeting.

Neither public body took any action regarding the proposed program and ordinance at this meeting, according to committee members.