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(Continued from Page 1) of his land is valued at $1,650 an acre. “I guarantee you that I can’t make that much from the land. I need a tax break or I’m going to have to shoot a road down through it and start selling lots,” he said.
Settle added that he’d prefer to be in an agriculture and forestal district “but if I can’t, I’m going to need land use...If just four or five farmers are denied relief because they couldn’t get in an ag district, it would be a dirty thing,” he maintained.
He repeated his warning that without tax relief, he’ll have to sell his property for development. “And you sure don’t need another school bus full of kids,” he told the supervisors.
Settle emphasized that he has no quarrel with the $1,650 value placed on his land. “I could sell it for that much for lots but if you can farm that $1,650 an acre and make your taxes, come down and talk to me. I want to know how you do it!”
He pointed out that the majority of the eligible landowners in Rappahannock have outside incomes and will probably not apply for land use. “But I make my living at farming. I have to get into it!” Settle concluded.
“I’m not speaking on behalf of my family because we’re going to make it I know we are. We’re lucky,” said Nelson Lane whose family corporation is the county’s largest single landowner. But many of the county’s smaller farmers are not diversified and have no outside income, he added. These farmers need use value taxation in order to keep their land in agriculture, Lane said, pointing out that open farm land demands no county services. “We pay taxes for services,” he said.
W. G. East ham, who has an 860 acre farm on Route 729, said he owns 400 acres “that I can make a little money on—the balance I can’t.” The non-productive portion is woodland, trees that will have to grow for at least anothei generation before they produce any income. With the county’s new 100 percent fair market value assessments which take effect next year, “I won’t be able to keep that mountain land if I don’t get a tax break,” Eastham said.
Jack Atkins of Amissville gave the supervisors examples of how use value taxation could affect different properties in the
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