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Board reduces land value for 204‑acre estate after debate on floodplain, slope and access
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Summary
After testimony from a retained appraiser and lengthy discussion about floodplain, critical slope and access, the board increased the environmental discount on a 204‑acre parcel and reduced its assessed land value, while affirming two small access parcels.
The Board of Equalization adjusted the assessed land value of a roughly 204‑acre estate after hearing a multi‑hour appeal from the property owners and a retained appraiser. The hearing centered on whether floodplain, critical slope and access constraints materially limit development potential and therefore the parcel’s taxable market value.
Woody Finchem, a local appraiser retained by the owners, testified that much of the parcel is encumbered by water protection and critical slope, that development rights may effectively be extinguished, and that treating the property as a typical county mass‑appraised parcel overstates land value. He urged the board to treat the land as an economic unit because the two smaller parcels function primarily as access to the large parcel.
Assessor’s office staff acknowledged floodplain and slope on the parcel and described the model adjustments they applied: size discounts, a 30% topography reduction on portions of acreage, and a 55% reduction for the acres in the floodplain. The office also explained it values the three existing home sites differently (second and third home sites receive reductions for being non‑separable) and stated that conservation‑easement sales require special handling because those transactions extinguish development rights.
Board members probed access routes, surveyor statements and whether a formal community development determination or recorded easement would be necessary to prove the parcel is effectively non‑developable. Several members said the record lacked a definitive professional determination that development rights were extinguished, but they were persuaded that the assessor had under‑adjusted the subject parcel's floodplain/environmental discount compared with comparable sales.
The board voted unanimously to increase the reduction applied to the subject parcel’s floodplain/water‑protection acreage (moving the county’s recorded discount on that portion from 55% to 75% for the purposes of this assessment), which produced a revised land value recorded in the minutes and a new total assessment of $4,158,900 for application 43 (tax map 62‑5100). The board affirmed the assessor’s valuations on the two smaller access parcels (applications 41 and 42). The assessor’s office advised the owners they may return with surveyor reports or community‑development input for further review in a future filing.
