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Landowner upset about changes in ‘Clean and Green’

5 min read
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When Diane Adams was looking for a piece of property 13 years ago, she specifically wanted a 10-acre plot, the minimum to qualify for tax savings when enrolled in the state’s agricultural and forest land preservation program in place since 1974, known as “Clean and Green.”

Adams, a resident of Buffalo Township, purchased a 10.2-acre farm subdivision and immediately applied to be part of Pennsylvania Farmland and Forest Land Assessment Act of 1974 and receive a preferential assessment that bases property taxes on use rather than fair market values. The act was adopted to protect farmland, forests and open spaces.

As 2015 was coming to a close, Adams received a letter from Washington County Tax Revenue Department stating because part of her land lies along the Buffalo Church Road right of way, her farmland falls below the 10-acre minimum, and her preferential tax status would end with the 2017 tax year unless she could gross $2,000 in agricultural income.

“I was confused that the Clean and Green program, which started with 10 acres, could make a turnaround like this, affecting many more people than just me,” Adams said. “It’s a very popular thing. They completely deserve to have this tax break.”

Because of the subtraction of the part of her property that is overlapped by road right of way, Adams’ land measures an eighth of an acre below the minimum.

The letter from Raffaele Casale, Washington County’s assistant chief assessor, cited a 2010 Commonwealth Court case, Richard F. Way vs. Berks County Board of Assessment Appeals, as the reason “land spanning a public road is ineligible for preferential assessment pursuant to Pennsylvania’s Clean and Green program.”

Casale’s supervisor, Chief Assessor Bradley Boni, wrote in an email Friday the appellate court case clarified acreage inside a road right-of-way can’t be part of the Clean and Green program.

“In many rural areas in Washington County and other Pennsylvania counties, legal property descriptions plot to the center line of the road right-of-way. The Way decision indicated that property included in the right-of-way could not be farmed, forested or made available for scenic or aesthetic benefit, so it therefore could not be counted as preferentially-assessed acreage,” Boni said.

Commonwealth Court ruled more than five years ago, so why did Washington County wait until now to inform Adams of the change?

“We knew that going into the reassessment in 2017, Clean and Green was in need of some maintenance,” Boni wrote. “Several years ago, our department began a comprehensive, systematic review of all of the Clean and Green properties on our tax roll. Clean and Green parcels consist of approximately 8,000 of our 120,000 total parcels, or roughly 6.5 percent.”

Of these, about 500 property owners, like Adams, are affected by the Commonwealth Court ruling in the Way case.

“We have notified property owners of their potential for continued enrollment and have encouraged them to meet with us,” Boni wrote. “For instance, the acquisition of additional contiguous property from a neighbor, or gross, annual receipts totaling $2,000 from agricultural production may afford these property owners the opportunity for continued enrollment.

“With very few exceptions, the response from property owners has been favorable. They just want to know what their options are. There have been very few outwardly aggrieved property owners, but we assure them that our interpretation … is founded on law and was not haphazardly entered into without forethought. It should also be pointed out that these property owners are not being subjected to rollback tax penalties, as this case and decision occurred at a time well after most of these property owners entered into Clean and Green, and this decision is of no fault of their own.”

“It’s an asset to be involved in Clean and Green, and it could depreciate my property to not be involved in Clean and Green,” Adams said last week. “I thought new rulings would affect someone purchasing now or in the future, not all of us who bought in the past. I’ve never heard of a lot that was intact for so long being changed.”

Adams said, “They’re not charging a penalty, thank goodness, but I still don’t see their right to change things. You just decreased the value of my farm if you take me out of Clean and Green. Does that make sense?”

She said she does not know what the difference in her tax bill would be without the Clean and Green program.

Last April, before she had an inkling about the change in her land’s taxable status, she sold her goats, two Nubians named Shawn and Mahogany, and one Alpine, Gracy, whose job on the farm was mostly to keep vegetation clipped.

“I wish I hadn’t sold them now,” she said.

Her other farm-related activities last year were a single cutting of hay. Multiple cuttings, she said, were inhibited by the extremely wet weather and keeping a flock of 13 chickens.

She also could try to purchase an eighth of an acre.

“I would have to pay for, not only the neighboring land, but a survey of both properties and changing the deeds, I imagine, and all that. It just seems unfair,” she said.

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