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Warren

Commissioner Critical -‘‘Poor souls!” was the response from J. Monroe Burke Jr., Warren County’s commissioner of revenue, when told that Rappahannock is considering adoption of a use value taxation ordinance.

With a $10 recording fee charged for each noncontiguous parcel in land use, Burke maintained that fees “don’t even come close” to covering costs for administration of the program. “Our board went for land use and agricultural districts both—the whole hog. It keeps you busy,” Burke said, estimating that the assessor spent a third of his time on land use. “We can’t get people to understand it. We almost have to hand feed them,” he added.

“We have land subdivided on plats that’s still getting land use, that’s what 1 object to,” Burke continued. “They sell and make a profit and the county pays.” He maintained that the five year roll-back period as a penalty for dropping out of the program “isn’t tough enough. The back taxes aren’t much and it’s the little man who buys the lot who will have to pay...It’s a subsidy to the guy who sells the land. It just gives them a tax shelter,” Burke said. In addition, he said there’s been no difference in the change of farm land to more intensive uses since adoption of use value.

Taxes in Warren County don’t appear to have gone up much as the result of land use. however. The rate was 50 cents per $100 before use value taxation was adopted in 1979 and this year’s rate is 55 cents, according to Burke.

Warren County’s assessor reported the fair market value of property in land use as $28,200,650. The program’s preferential assessment drops that figure down to $9,213,430 for tax purposes. He estimated that 25 per cent of the county’s total area is in land use, falling only in the categories of agricultural and forestal although use value taxation is