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Residents and staff spar over land-use rules and tax burden as county reviews use-value program
Summary
At the Aug. 20 Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors meeting, residents pressed the board about what they called an unfair tax burden on small-parcel owners and asked for audits; county staff explained how Virginia's land-use (use-value) program works and how local practice calculates use values.
Dozens of residents and county staff spent more than an hour on Aug. 20 discussing Fluvanna County's use-value/land-use program, which reduces property tax assessments for qualifying agricultural, forestry and open-space parcels. Speakers from the public said the current distribution of tax liability places an excessive share on small residential parcels; county staff outlined statutory rules and the local method used to compute use values.
The discussion began in public comment when Don Maynard, a resident, said, “Those parcels under 20 acres pay 87.68% of the taxes and the cap, and they comprise 28.7% of the the land.” He urged the board to address what he called an unsustainable distribution of tax burden.
Why it matters: land-use classifications and the way use-value estimates are applied determine how much acreage is assessed at reduced values. Residents argued that current practice shifts more of the county's revenue responsibility onto smaller, developed properties; staff and county officials said the program…
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