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SOME OF OUR NEIGHBORS in Fauquier County are all worked up over a problem that hasn’t really reached crisis proportions in Rappahannock. And in going through the agony of trying the resolve way of relieving land tax pressures on farmers, Fauquier countians seem headed for enactment of a land use tax relief measure that has already been approved in Loudoun and Prince William.
According to one Rappahannock official, there hasn’t been a great deal of interest expressed here in Virginia’s land use tax legislation, simply because “the problem hasn’t really hit us yet.” Let’s hope it doesn’t.
The problem that has Fauquier in such throes is constantly rising land taxes and the squeeze this puts on farmers and other large landowners. A tremendous amount of residential construction, and the deficit tax situation this creates where schools and other services are concerned, has brought many farmers to the point of having to decide whether to go broke or sell out.
It isn’t much of a choice, and taxing land on the basis of its use rather than its potential — which is what “fair market value” amounts to — may give such farmers a better chance of continuing to earn a living by working on the land.
' BUT WHILE RAPPAHANNOCK has been spared the agonies of Prince William, Loudoun and now Fauquier, we should not think that this fortunate condition will necessarily go on forever — or automatically, either.
The powerline threats, the “secondhome” schemes, the increasing number of inquiries by wouldby subdividers are evidence that without constant vigilance, the Rappahannock we all love could be transformed into something we might no longer recognize, and which we might not be able to afford. □
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