More Details About The Land...

Since starting this blog, I have received feedback from some of the blogs followers asking if I could provide a little more info on the piece of land that I'm trying to save. The heavily wooded property which is just under 44 acres is currently enrolled in the “clean and green” act. Clean and Green is a preferential tax assessment program, that bases property taxes on use values rather than fair market values. This ordinarily results in a tax savings for landowners. The Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted the program in 1974 as a tool to encourage protection of the Commonwealth's valuable farmland, forestland and open spaces. Currently, more than 9.3 million acres are enrolled statewide. The eligibility for a property on "Clean and Green" states that the property must be ten acres in size, and in Agricultural Use, Agricultural Reserve, or Forest Reserve. Agricultural Use applications may be less than 10 acres in size if the property is capable of generating at least $2,000 annually in farm income. In a nutshell this means that as long as the property stays the same (no structures, no roads, etc) the annual property taxes on the property will remain low (around $300.00 a year). My intent is to keep the land enrolled in the "Clean and Green" act and not to make any changes what so ever to it. Per the real state agent who I have been speaking with about the property, the property itself would also come with one “building right”, that if someone in the future wanted to build a structure (ie. house, barn, etc) on this property it would not be a problem with the township. I explained to the real estate agent that this is something that I did not believe I would have a use for but he instructed me that without this "building right" that the property itself would hold no value and that if nothing else it is always better to have a "building right" and not use it than to have a property that has no "building rights". As I said before I do not plan on doing any type of building on this property as I want to keep it as natural as possible. The real estate agent also suggested that at some point it may be a wise idea to have someone come into the property to do a timber harvest, while this would help to pay some of the yearly property taxes on the property I have not explored the option enough to know for sure if this is something I would be interested in pursuing.