9.o— Lancaster Farming. Saturday, April 17,1971
It Happened in Harrisburg
Reps. H. Jack Seltzer (R-
Lebanon) and Robert C. Rowe
(R-Lebanon/Lancaster
The Legislatuie has begun to
search for ways to help preserve
Pennsylvania’s fa r m la n d ,
through relief from real estate
taxes, and through regional
planning.
Bills have already been intro
duced and others are being pre
pared, to implement recommen
dations of Governor Shafer’s
Committee for the Preservation
of Agricultural Land in a report
submitted December 1969. The
report warned
“Nearly one-half of Pennsyl
vania’s farmland has gone out of
food production since the turn of
the century This includes 420,-
000 acres of some of Pennsyl
vania’s best agricultural land
■which has been converted to non-
agncultural uses in the past 10
years, on average of 115 acres
each day This pattern is ac
celerating and is likely to con
tinue ”
The Governor’s Committee
suggested several steps to slow
down this potentially dangerous
process One calls for legislation
to base farm and forest taxation
The Great
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on land use lather than on mai*
ket value The Committee point
ed out: -
“Once an area surrounding
land in agricultural use becomes
developed, taxes on this agricul
tural land are so high that the
owner is forced to sell the land
for more intensive development.”
A constitutional .amendment
has been introduced in the
House and Senate to permit the
General Assembly to establish
standards for the taxation of
land used for agricultural pur
pose.
The constitutional amendment
process is a slow one, and this
proposal could not be submitted
to the voters before the 1973
Primary Election. A quicker
method would be through
amendment of the Assessment
Law.
Chester Heim, legislative di
rector of the Pennsylvania Farm
ers’ Association, told an associa
tion meeting held in Harrisburg
March 29 that such an amend
ment is now being prepared.
Other groups are also at work
on this knotty and urgent prob
lem Norman F Reber, editor
of Pennsylvania Farmer, report-
Messick Farm Equip.
ELIZABETHTOWN
367-1319
Kauffman Bros,
ed m the February 27 issue that compeition foi available land is
a tax study committee is at work intense
in Centre County on the specifics bl |j -would require a plan
of how to assess land used for a( j o p|; e( j a ft er a public hearing
agricultural purposes in a fair ag a pre-condition to agreement
manner. between counties or municipali-
David S. Barr, the county’s
chief assessor, has called upon
Russell Larson, dean, of Penn
State’s college of agriculture,
and other specialists to furnish
him with guidelines.
One criterion suggested would
be the per-acre annual rental
value of land by soil'type. An
other is the value of agricultural
buildings when used for agricul
tural purposes.
The Pennsylvania Farmer com
ments editorially “One of the
appealing features of the annual
lental income approach is that it
is widely used in assessing such
things as shopping centers, com
mercial and industrial property.”
Our neighboring states of New
Jersey, Delaware and Connecti
cut have moved in the direction
of fair assessment of land in
actual farm use. In New Jersey
no farmland is being assessed
higher than $7OO an acre, com
pared to $5,000 to $25,000 an acre
before the State passed a consti
tutional amendment dealing with
this question.
A unique feature of New Jer
sey’s tax law, passed in 1964, is
its provision for a farmland ad
visoiy committee, consisting of
the director of the state division
of taxation, the state secretary of
agriculture and the dean of the
college of agriculture
A unique feature of New Jer-i
sey’s tax law, passed in 1964, is
its provuson for a farmland ad
visory committee, consisting of
the director of the N state division
of taxation, the state secretary of
agriculture and the dean of the
college of agriculture
So there is ample precedent
for the steps which Pennsylvania
is now beginning to take I
Another bill has been intro
duced of interest to faimers lo
cated in areas adjacent to large
centers of population -where
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ties alnd landowners for the
preservation of farmland, forest,
water and open space The bill
would remove the requirement
that an area be designated as ur- (j overnor Shapp’s approach to
ban by the Federal Government. thlg pro |ji eln suggests that a hi
' Pennsylvania farmers are en- partisan effort'will be made to
couraged that Governor Shapp solve it ..
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has publicly supported their
plea for real estate tax relief.
During an interview with a
staff member of Pennsylvania
Farmer last October 10 Shapp
said “Farm real estate taxes
should be based on the yield of
farmland and not upon the as
sessment Today somebody
buys 100 or 200 acres in a farm
area,' puts up a big shopping
center and all the assessments
in a mile radius start rising . . .
The taxes go up for the farmer
and yet there is no increased
yield from his land . . . forcing
many farmers to sell out their
property ...” -