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car, their truck,” Massie said. The deferral for use value applies only to undeveloped land, “land that doesn’t demand services,” a fact often overlooked in debates over the county’s tax structure, he added.
Third, people and their related revenues are all put in one category in order to break down county services into comparable categories.
Fiscal Impact Only One Factor
In her summary' Vance acknowledges that fiscal impact is only one factor in land use planning. Local government must also consider provision of adequate housing, creation of jobs, protection of the environment and the health of Rappahannock’s various economic sectors. But fiscal impact should play an important part in planning, the PEC study points out, and because of the net financial gain it brings the county, the protection of open land should be a priority.
The study also suggests that to help assure that the net contribution from industrial and commercial land is not eroded, local government should encourage business which employs local residents rather than business which will import its own employees. Additional people, even if brought in by new commercial ventures, demand more services. Accordingly, attraction of the right kind of business to Rappahannock County can play a critical role in preserving farm and forest land and other open space.
That policy of preservation is the crux of PEC’s findings: “This study indicates that encouraging the protection of open land is not merely an indulgence for wealthy communities but rather is fiscally responsible public policy,” Vance’s report reads.
In the last two years, opposition to land use taxation has coalesced. In particular, those working for improvements to the county’s educational system have called for a re-examination of the use value assessment program, arguing that tax money is being “lost to land use.” Once the people of Rappahannock learn who’s shouldering the tax burden, will that opposition to land use dwindle? Will advocates of quality education stop regarding farmers as the enemy?
Newbill Miller knew what PEC’s study would prove before the results were ever released. “I didn’t expect the picture to change at all with land
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