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cows, or even honeysuckle. And what comes with houses? Well, schools, and more of them, to begin with. And increased demand for more public services, such as police, public water and sewer, and recreational areas, and so forth. And how do we pay for them? Taxes, and more taxes. The more houses we have, the more taxes we pay, it’s a proven, historical fact.
Look at every fast developing jurisdiction in the state, and you will see that the tax rate goes up with the development. Loudoun County, one of the fastest developing counties in the nation, is building several new schools every year, and there’s no end in sight. And Loudoun has the potential for commercial development, which normally pays more in taxes than it requires in public support. Rappahannock County doesn’t have that commercial potential, and so our future, if we permit, or promote, by the restriction of lan^-use taxation benefits, the conversion of our open land to residential development, is to be a bed-room community. A community where our citizens educate their children here (thus requiring us to pay enough taxes for that education), and go elsewhere to work where their employers pay taxes for the commercial use to another jurisdiction.
So, the obvious conclusions, by those of us who have the benefit of having seen these same arguments every time there is a reassessment, are the following:
• It is not fair for the owner of agricultural or forest land that pays more than its net public cost to the county for its support to pay taxes at the same level of the owner of a house that requires more public expense than it pays; o The conversion of profitable agricultural or forest land to residential uses-will increase the tax burden for all of us;
• The restriction or abandonment of land-use taxation will accelerate the conversion of agricultural or forest land <to residential uses; *
• It is the use of the land, and its net public costs, that is the appropriate and fair method oi determining the amount of tax that should be paid; and
• Cows don’t ride school buses.
I hope that, once the true facts are considered, those persons who agree with Mr. Kossler’s complaint will no longer feel the need to bash mailboxes. And then we will he fine until the next reassessment, when we will, have to make the same arguments again.
Frank Reynolds
’Washington
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