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Yet, acting as if the question had already been decided before the meeting, the supervisors moved perfunctorily to kill the open-space category of the county’s use-value tax law. ! There are essentially only two ways to qualify for openfepace use-value taxation: enter into an eight- or 10-year contract with the county not to develop your land (e.g., an agricultural or forestal district), or give most of your development rights to the Commonwealth of Virginia in the form of a permanent conservation easement.
The county’s comprehensive plan establishing public policy on this matter encourages landowners to establish these districts and donate these easements in the public interest. If the supervisors elect to grant use-value taxation to any land in the county, there is a strong argument to be made that properties subject to explicit restrictions on future use of the land should be first to qualify.
The Board of Supervisors should revisit this issue in the 'vital context of the comprehensive plan. An issue as important as this to our farming and timber industries, and to the visual brder of Rappahannock County deserves no less than this eecond consideration before its full impact begins hitting us With destruction of this valued heritage in times ahead.
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