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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
KatpahaamckNaw* Staff Writer
Of Rappahannock’s 170,880 acres (excluding Shenandoah National Park), about 78,500 are currently enrolled in the use value assessment program. Of that total, 55,000 acres are owned by county residents and 23,500 acres by non-resident landowners.
ANALYSIS
The market value of property receiving land use in 1986 was 174,588,560. Through the program’s tax benefits, $46,644,650 was deferred, meaning that the tax rate was applied against $27,943,910 — the use value — which gave Rappahannock’s general fund $270,538 less than if the properties in land use had been assessed and taxed at fair market value.
Approximately 1,200 separate parcels are enrolled in the use value taxation program and about 75 new applications are received annually.
Since 1983, when a separate listing was begun for land use properties, the amount of value deferred has increased by about 5 1/2 percent a year.
Those are the figures from the land books in the Commissioner of Revenue’s and Clerk’s office. What can’t be found in any records is a tabulation on (1) the number of acres of farm, forest and open space which would have
been developed to more intensive residential and commercial uses if land use had not been available and (2) the cost of services — schools, roads, fire and police protection, welfare and solid waste disposal — which the more intensive uses would have required.
Enacted as enabling legislation by the Virginia General Assembly in 1976, use value taxation is one more tool that local govern
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