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Committee backs urban-farming assessment changes to broaden qualifying properties
Summary
Second-substitute House Bill 240 would broaden the criteria for urban-farming tax assessment treatment by allowing smaller acreage and gross-sales thresholds; the Taxation Committee unanimously recommended the bill after farmers and agriculture officials testified in support.
Second-substitute House Bill 240, the Urban Farming Assessment Amendments, was favorably recommended by the Taxation Committee on Feb. 26 after testimony from farmers, the Utah Department of Agriculture and food-policy groups.
Representative Shipp told the committee the bill aims to promote food security and help urban farms qualify for special assessment treatment. The substitute allows counties to adopt ordinances accepting urban farming and provides alternatives for qualification: production-based rules (producing more than 50% of a county’s average agricultural production) or sales/acreage-based criteria for smaller properties. For parcels under five acres, the bill provides a sales threshold: for acreage between one acre and under five acres, every quarter acre of production requires an annual gross of $1,000 per quarter acre. The sponsor said applicants must show two consecutive years of qualifying production and at least one year of qualifying production within the past three years to qualify.
Speakers in support included Cymbria Patterson of Red Acres Center for Food and Agriculture, Amber Brown of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, and Terry Cam of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation. Witnesses said the changes will give assessors clearer authority to judge production and enable small urban farms and intensive operations (including quarter-acre greenhouse operations) to access assessment treatment.
Committee members raised questions about potential effects on residential properties and property-tax “leakage.” The sponsor and witnesses said that the qualifying acreage requirement and assessor review would address concerns, and staff located bill language indicating the house bill excludes buildings from the valuation reduction. The committee moved and unanimously recommended the second substitute.
The sponsor said the substitute is designed to protect food-security efforts while balancing property-tax impacts. The committee recorded a unanimous 5-0 recommendation to advance the second substitute.
