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avcid^c vaiuc ui me used in the comparison was $59,500 and the total personal property and real estate paid last year by each homeowner averaged $205.63, according to Miller.
Using the new 100 percent fair market value assessments and a rate of 28 cents per $100 necessary to derive the $700,000 from real estate in thl* y«Ar’s budget, tt* WH tbr the ten homeowners would average $169.59—$40 less than the previous year’s levy. Miller pointed out.
With land use and 20 percent of the county’s total land value deferred (close to 40 percent of Rappahannock's actual acreage), the tax rate required to raise that same $700,000 from real estate would be 32 cents per $100, giving the ten homeowners bills averaging $192.78.
If 40 percent of the land value is deferred (with 60 to 65 percent of the county’s total acreage receiving use value), tax bills for those ten homeowners will climb to an average of $223.13, Miller reported.
By comparison, he said, taxes on personal property and land paid by five working farmers whose holdings ran from 73 to 441 acres averaged $1,118 last year under the old assessments.
Homeowners here benefit from undeveloped farm, forest and open space land through higher property values, said Miller, who in addition to running a beef cattle operation also has a real estate business. “Houses are selling here for good and excellent prices because of the area where they're located,” he said, adding that homes in Rappahannock bring higher prices than similiar structures in Warren and Culpeper Counties.
Continue Land Use
Miller acknowledged that Rappahannock property has traditionally been underassessed, a condition that will cease with implementation of 100 percent fair market values next year. “It’s not a question of whether we’re going to have land use taxation but whether we’re going to continue,” he said.
Health, police, school, fire and other service demands are created by houses and the people who live in houses, according to Lee Bird. “Open land, land in crops, places no demand on the county for services...To tax that land at a high rate is self-defeating. It’s an encouragement to the farmer to sell off his land” for development which will add to the service-demand spiral, he said.
The demand for more services can be avoided only if farm land stays in land use, according to Luke. He
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