Forestry Standards

Forestry Standards

A Problem

It is not sufficient to consider only agricultural use in evaluating property applying for an Agricultural and Forestal District, according to Marshall. "One of the problems has been the standards that apply to forestry land...Agricultural standards have been modified in the direction of tightening at least three times (since the law was developed),” he noted while forestry standards have not. “It’s unfortunate that cedar brush land qualifies,” Marshall commented, adding that the General Assembly was looking at the forestry standards and he expected to see standards changed.

“Forestry resources in Virginia are of relatively low quality,” Marshall said. “One of the reasons is taxes. Even at use value, it’s difficult to justify an investment on private land in forest production."

If the taxes were taken off forest property, “cedar brush land would jolly well be planted in more productive species,” Marshall said. Another alternative to the dilemma of how to treat forest land would be to tax land that wasn’t under good management at fair market value or some other higher rate, he suggested.

“The effect on localities would be severe,” Marshall acknowledged. “But zoning won’t grow trees ... The insitutional arrangements we’re moving towards will probably involve the outright purchase of development rights on land in productive forest use or on land where we want to prevent development.” These drastic solutions are required because “land values are so high that owners can afford to pay large sums to break zoning ordinances,” maintained Marshall. Local jurisdictions might consider setting aside yearly “some modest sum to purchase development rights,” he said. Marshall added that both state and federal governments should contribute to this development rights fUnd.'“It mint be a shared program,” he insisted.

Some distinction needs to be made between land that will produce 50 bushels of ' corn per acre and land that will produce 100 bushels per