Mar 3, 2016 5 min read

Many of about 500 Washington County owners of farmette-sized tracts who were shocked to find out late last year their land was going to be removed from a 40-year-old statewide program known as Clean and Green should be getting a second round of letters from Washington County bringing them back into the fold.

Although he hadn’t received the latest in the series of letters as of Wednesday, Mike Christoff of Nottingham Township said, “It’s kind of hot and heavy with the Clean and Green this year in Washington County. I was actually thinking about it recently. It’s been over two months since people received their (original) letters.”

In late December, the Washington County Tax Revenue Department notified about 500 people enrolled in the Clean and Green program their tracts did not meet a 10-acre threshold because the county was going to begin subtracting roads and public rights of way from their total acreage. They were advised they could remedy this by purchasing more acreage or showing they had at least $2,000 in annual farm income.

Faced with a host of angry constituents, commissioners directed county solicitor J. Lynn DeHaven to research the ramifications of a 2010 Commonwealth Court case that triggered the tax assessment office notifications.

Commiss Chairman Larry Maggi said, “The commissioners should have been contacted, should have been consulted over it,” before the initial notifications went out in December. “We do make the final decisions. I don’t how they came to that decision down there. We made a correction to it.”

Based on DeHaven’s findings, the board decided that the appellate court case “does not pertain to Washington County’s Clean and Green policies and procedures,” according to a letter that is being mailed from the county Tax Revenue Department. “In consideration of that fact, you may disregard any previous correspondence that you may have received from this department pertaining to this matter.”

DeHaven on Thursday had two versions of letters from Raffaele Casale, assistant chief assessor, about the preferential tax status conferred through the Clean and Green program, in existence since 1974. One letter, mailed to about half the landowners in the program, states that the information currently on file at the county about their participation in the program “is accurate and requires no additional maintenance or modification” until the property is subdivided or there are changes in how the land is used.

The other version tells a second group of landowners that the Clean and Green application on file with the county “is in need of updating for one or more reasons” and directs them to contact the assessment office.

“We have also been able to determine that many of these property owners have categorized their enrollment incorrectly,” wrote Chief Assessor Bradley Boni in response to an email inquiry. “For example, a property owner may have a completely tree-covered property, but they have classified their enrollment as agricultural use. We are going to request that they amend their application to reflect forest reserve as their enrollment category.”

Both types of the letters deal with “what we call the net versus gross issue,” DeHaven said of the acreage required to be enrolled in the program. “That was the subject of the Way v. Berks County Board of Assessment Appeals (case) that was ultimately decided by Commonwealth Court. I gave an opinion to the solicitor of the assessment office that the proper standard in Washington County was to use gross acreage which, to oversimplify it, would include roadways that were part of the deeded acreage to the landowner.”

Christoff said while the issue was in limbo, “people could be making poor and uninformed decisions over that two months. I get letters all the time about, ‘We want to buy 100 percent or part of your mineral rights.’ Someone could say, ‘My taxes are going to go way up because I’m getting booted out of Clean and Green.’

“I was wondering how long it was going to take for letters to come out. In my situation, I have 10.1 acres but well over 800 feet of frontage. I lose damn near half an acre.”

When the tax assessment office started reviewing the Clean and Green program in preparation for the reassessment, it was discovered that it had been the policy of rounding up so that owners of tracts smaller than 10 gross acres qualified for the Clean and Green program.

The owners of smaller tracts now have to show proof of $2,000 in farm commodity income to continue to qualify.

DeHaven said the tax assessment office contacted 53 owners of the small tracts, and 17 of them were able to remain in the program. The remaining 36 landowners will not be getting a second letter from the county, according to the solicitor, but they won’t be required to pony up taxes for years past.

“There is a regulation in the Clean and Green Act that addresses this issue on the nailhead,” DeHaven explained. “If an assessor determines that at the time of enrollment, the county is to provide written notice and hold a hearing. If the preferential assessment is terminated, the landowner should not be hit with rollback taxes.”