End of an Era

[Logan52]

Being on the same place for well over 50 years has allowed me to see a lot of changes. Once I did not only know my neighbors by their first name, I probably knew three generations of their family and was probably related to them.
Now, I do not know who these people are with a few exceptions.
Our county has long had a contingent very opposed to any kind of zoning, saying no one can tell me how to use my land. One side of my place shares a boundary with a county road for over a mile. I watched as an out of county buyer bought the place across the road and promptly surveyed the 120 acres into a long series of small lots with narrow frontage on the county road. I then lived on that part of the farm but saw then it was time to move. We were out growing our little house anyway and I built a new one on the far side of the farm.
Over the last 20 years the surveyed place has filled up. The lots have narrow poorly ditched driveways going up a steep hill as they leave the county road, a road where I once rarely saw a car and knew by sound who was driving it. Now I usually meet two or three vehicles when I drive to the back of the place and the road has been destroyed by the poorly ditched driveways and is mostly crumbling blacktop. Most of these places have a four wheeler without a muffler and a pit bull or two whose main playground is the county road.
Anyway, I know zoning is fraught with problems and could never stand up against the powers behind the data centers. But would some sort of zoning better protected the county and its residents?

 

[Lucky]

It's hard to fight progress. As prices of everything increase the only way the county can maintain is to raise taxes. They can only raise taxes so much before people throw a fit so they they try to attract new businesses. Businesses need people to work so more people move in. It's an endless battle.

The thing that really gets me around here is how these big companies have lawyers that outsmart the county reps and get tax breaks to move in. They end up paying pennies on the dollar for years.

 

[Logan52]

Yeah, I was a county magistrate for a couple of terms and understand where you are coming from. I saw the problem but could do nothing to stop it. It was also troubling that by the time the tax breaks ran out the business was already closed or had moved on in search of a better tax break somewhere else. The county tax payer was left to pay the cost of the infrastructure improvements made to lure the business.
I would not say you can not fight progress. I would say you can not fight human greed and the longing for power.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Being on the same place for well over 50 years has allowed me to see a lot of changes. Once I did not only know my neighbors by their first name, I probably knew three generations of their family and was probably related to them.
Now, I do not know who these people are with a few exceptions.
Our county has long had a contingent very opposed to any kind of zoning, saying no one can tell me how to use my land. One side of my place shares a boundary with a county road for over a mile. I watched as an out of county buyer bought the place across the road and promptly surveyed the 120 acres into a long series of small lots with narrow frontage on the county road. I then lived on that part of the farm but saw then it was time to move. We were out growing our little house anyway and I built a new one on the far side of the farm.
Over the last 20 years the surveyed place has filled up. The lots have narrow poorly ditched driveways going up a steep hill as they leave the county road, a road where I once rarely saw a car and knew by sound who was driving it. Now I usually meet two or three vehicles when I drive to the back of the place and the road has been destroyed by the poorly ditched driveways and is mostly crumbling blacktop. Most of these places have a four wheeler without a muffler and a pit bull or two whose main playground is the county road.
Anyway, I know zoning is fraught with problems and could never stand up against the powers behind the data centers. But would some sort of zoning better protected the county and its residents?

Your zoning ideas are a double edged sword that by your own admission you fight with. Many that live in the country don't see zoning regulation as a friend when it limits development, but it certainly can be. I'll mention something here that has became a very debated topic with strong opinions for the most part against here, but it has merits. That would be an agricultural or conservation easement. In those cases, the landowner basically sells their right to development or restricts it severely (the landowner gets paid for it). The land is them permanently restricted from development to the degree in the easement that the landowner has sold. Likely this will impact the future dollar value of the property negatively. It permanently ensures the agricultural value of the property is forever.

So, I'll ask the question: Is a conservation/agricultural easement a "Godsend", or a "deal with the Devil"? (or possibly even both)

 

[GoWyo]

Your zoning ideas are a double edged sword that by your own admission you fight with. Many that live in the country don't see zoning regulation as a friend when it limits development, but it certainly can be. I'll mention something here that has became a very debated topic with strong opinions for the most part against here, but it has merits. That would be an agricultural or conservation easement. In those cases, the landowner basically sells their right to development or restricts it severely (the landowner gets paid for it). The land is them permanently restricted from development to the degree in the easement that the landowner has sold. Likely this will impact the future dollar value of the property negatively. It permanently ensures the agricultural value of the property is forever.

So, I'll ask the question: Is a conservation/agricultural easement a "Godsend", or a "deal with the Devil"? (or possibly even both)

Conservation easements are awesome . . . . on my adjoining neighbors' properties.

 

[Brute 23]

I have seen properties sold with conservation easements. Yes they wont bring development money but it didn't seem to effect the price much from hunting or livestock prices. Most the people who were buying the properties for them to remain a recreational/ livestock property didn't mind it. They were also set up where like the property was 3000ac and 2500 was in conservation easement. They kind of left you some to add houses or infrastructure.

 

[Warren Allison]

In Texas land in Ag Use (Ranch or Farm ground) is taxed on it's production value and not the actual cash value. My place is valued at around $4k an acre and the taxes are about $1or 2 an acre. Is land in Georgia taxed differently?

No, property is taxed at 40% of appraised value in our county.

 

[GoWyo]

I have seen properties sold with conservation easements. Yes they wont bring development money but it didn't seem to effect the price much from hunting or livestock prices. Most the people who were buying the properties for them to remain a recreational/ livestock property didn't mind it. They were also set up where like the property was 3000ac and 2500 was in conservation easement. They kind of left you some to add houses or infrastructure.

The key is retaining well placed building envelopes for family lots or potential sale later. They can be a good way to preserve ag uses in the face of development pressure. The devil is in the details of the terms and conditions of the easement and whether the land trust is ag friendly or antagonistic to ag.

 

[chaded]

Here, CAUV application is filled out and sent to the county auditor. Up until the last two years they didn't even require us to fill it out, just sign the bottom and send it back. We have a new auditor and we have to break every acre down and it's use on the form. No big deal.

There is now an effort from a group to eliminate property taxes entirely in Ohio. It has gotten past the AG and they are collecting signatures now to get it on the ballot. I have to say though, the tax reduction from CAUV is a large part why I keep farming. I may not be so inclined to keep up if property taxes are done away with and it doesn't matter…

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Conservation easements are awesome . . . . on my adjoining neighbors' properties.

. So you are the "Have your cake and eat it too", or possibly a "double standard" type of personality?

I'm just poking fun, and I fully get what you are saying. It is a real conundrum.

 

[GoWyo]

. So you are the "Have your cake and eat it too", or possibly a "double standard" type of personality?

I'm just poking fun, and I fully get what you are saying. It is a real conundrum.

I just want to preserve my viewshed and keep the neighborhood nice. I am a relatively small holding compared to the two neighbors who surround me. The largest one just changed ownership and it is a big time promotion and commotion cattle breeder operating on this deal they put together with some big money investors. I hope they consider a tax break from a conservation easement rather than wreck the neighborhood with subdivisions or solar panels. I don't know how long the investors are going to be content with just grazing income. I am afraid it is going to wind up being a $4itshow within a few years.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I just want to preserve my viewshed and keep the neighborhood nice. I am a relatively small holding compared to the two neighbors who surround me. The largest one just changed ownership and it is a big time promotion and commotion cattle breeder operating on this deal they put together with some big money investors. I hope they consider a tax break from a conservation easement rather than wreck the neighborhood with subdivisions or solar panels. I don't know how long the investors are going to be content with just grazing income. I am afraid it is going to wind up being a $4itshow within a few years.

You just hit on something I haven't ever thought of, although you might not be entirely in favor of it based on what you are saying. A conservation/agriculture easement that allows for installation of solar pannels and uses livestock to maintain vegetation around the pannels. Easement bans other development in the form of ranchette or subdivision and other industrial development that is not compatible with agriculture land use practices or natural conservation efforts. Hummm.......

Solar is renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels I know there are issues yet to be solved for used pannels.

Just a thought.

 

[GoWyo]

You just hit on something I haven't ever thought of, although you might not be entirely in favor of it based on what you are saying. A conservation/agriculture easement that allows for installation of solar pannels and uses livestock to maintain vegetation around the pannels. Easement bans other development in the form of ranchette or subdivision and other industrial development that is not compatible with agriculture land use practices or natural conservation efforts. Hummm.......

Solar is renewable energy that replaces fossil fuels I know there are issues yet to be solved for used pannels.

Just a thought.

I consider solar farms an industrial use. The one they put in south of Cheyenne is something like 800 acres and doesn't leave any room for uses for ag, wildlife, etc. Chain link fence around it and pretty well covered up the land. There is another planned for 4000 or 5000 acres. Cheyenne has big Microsoft and Meta data centers.

 

[Dave]

I wonder how many more of those green energy things will be happening for a while. The propellers for the wind turbines were going by on the freeway at the rate of 6 -8 a day. In January those stopped. I always figured they got unloaded off a boat around Portland and shipped east past here. Those only worked when the government was forking out a subsidy. Is it the same with solar?

 

[SmokinM]

There is nothing about a solar farm and a conservation easement that belong on the same property. Grass under glass is not conservation.

 

[Brute 23]

There is nothing about a solar farm and a conservation easement that belong on the same property. Grass under glass is not conservation.

Sheep is the thing now. Run sheep under it and call it eco friendly.

 

[kenny thomas]

My concern on a solar farm is that the life expectation is 20 years and then the panels will have to be replaced. What if on year 19 the company goes under rather than have the expense. And then the bond wont cover it because its not enough for now much less 20 year from now.

 

[Travlr]

There is nothing about a solar farm and a conservation easement that belong on the same property. Grass under glass is not conservation.

It's easy to call something conservation. It's easy to say something isn't conservation. I have no clue where all the chips fall. But I can see the damage we've done and know my grandkids will never see the abundance in the world that I knew as a child.
I was watching an old movie a couple of months ago and there was a scene where the noises of the night were so loud it made me realize that those sounds were what I'd known... but no longer hear... in the night-times of my childhood. I never noticed as it was happening. The world is a different place but it happens so slowly that we lack awareness.
It's not just some random rhino in Africa anymore. Its the bugs and birds and critters in our own back yards. Five years ago I'd go for a two mile walk and hear 8 or 10 meadowlarks. Now, if I hear one at all, it doesn't stick around. Ponds I could dip a jar full of tadpoles from don't have frogs.

 

[Lucky]

No, property is taxed at 40% of appraised value in our county.

What's the tax percentage of the 40%? Is there a yearly cap? Our yearly cap is 10% but only on the homestead.

 

[greybeard]

Those 'night noises' were one of the reasons I finally agreed to move from my place by the National Forest. 50 billion mosquitoes make a lot of Hummmmm!