farmland tax assessment and a rebate incentive
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
This archive found it in the recording: a call to order, a recess, or business the board never listed. The county recorded nothing about it, so everything below is our reading.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Oct 8, 2026
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Oct 8, 2026
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 18m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 97% of 120 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Okay, so 2.1.3, Mr. Moody, just before you ask me the question, I want to clarify it really quickly. So as you see on the screen, there is that Black. Font, which means that's existing language that we took from the previous policy that we had deleted. So that's provision E in the previous policy. Patty, if you could scroll up just so we could show the policy number. No, I'm scrolling down, sorry. So sorry. So
that's existing policy field 2.1.4, development of long term planning vision. So the reason for the location of this policy and actually you guys have the um the spreadsheet where it pretty much tells you the reason. Um these provisions are updated and they have never necessarily been done. And after discussion with our stakeholders and county attorney, we had um pretty much decided to delete these
provisions, but we believe that provision E in this policy needed to stay again to protect our Rural areas. So that is what became Pasco grows, our policy grows to point one
point three. Okay.
With a little bit more explanation, but
Okay. Yeah.
Out there is
Okay.
With from commissioners that has control over this document.
Make a decision about how. property, agricultural farmlands. value for the purposes of taxation.
I thought that was what the property appraiser did.
And you follow state laws.
It's hard to have the impulse. You go kill the property expansor to upgrade poverty.
That's
I mean it's a legitimate concern.
W was it was it staff's intent to
18 how the property apprecies were assessed as the Is that maybe? If they're bona find agriculture, they go to the property in Fraser, Townshend. Yeah, question.
Our attempt was not to
dictate to the property appraiser what they can or Should or should not do. Um how was it? Uh
In in looking at the existing provision E. We look at other states. And other communities within Florida that Um, try to incentivize farmland. It's um agricultural aspect of Of planet. And one common theme was this differential property value assessment. Um
The the thought here was that okay, you have land that gets valued. It's being used as agricultural, but Over time. The value of the line keeps increasing. which causes pressure on the agri on the agricultural business or the activity that's taking place on that site. And the idea was to somehow uh create an incentive system that could help reduce that pressure through various types of incentives, either through Had the loan tax. Litigation.
That's what
I guess
you're reading. If you were Instructure just sort of a rebating. Oh So we were gonna basically take the taxes that we collected
from So this was structured as a rebate program or we're gonna paint pay them back some of the taxes that they're They're big pain if they meet certain criteria. I'd be less concerned. Okay. I I'm not sure that I don't know if people have researched or Elizabeth has researched. Right. Whether we were preempted from
Even the accession process is heavily regulated by the state, the state statute. implemented by the
property agreement for sure.
I don't know if we have the government to do this. I'll be
pressure when they can have the authority.
I might put the problem.
right. If I'm farming my name, what's the first application I'm going to file with property appraiser. I'm going to ask for a vulnerable agricultural designation at which then I'm not going to pay any property taxes. Actually, no.
Well it's not because they've been nothing, they've just been significant. to deal with this. Right. It literally tags
and just very much. I think the idea here was also to try to capture Those rural lands that are Perhaps not bona fine agricultural, but still
I guess my point is if this was structured this was restructured as a But I think we have the authority to pay to spend that more revenue to incentivize Rural properties. But that's different. Then Same we're gonna alter it They call it the will we value the assessments.
Yes.
This is
there's
a reason. Let me just
put it this way. Even when we do Is it for economic development projects? We don't say that we're gonna v value their assessments differently.
In fact, we still say they have to pay us taxes. Just like the based on whatever the property appraiser
What we do though in those cases is we It is repay. Some of the taxes they pay us. Does it incentive if they meet certain criteria? We don't. Alter the way the collection process. Right. So I'm not sure you have authority to do this. this.
So you're you're trying to capture a rural area that could be be used for agriculture, even though it may not be. agriculturally used. So you may want to look at the terminology there too and Have you described it as a Rural or undeveloped. Planned. as opposed to agricultural use 'cause that could be confusing. For someone that may not. be using or
have an intention of using it for agricultural reasons.
I think if you want to do this it needs to be restructured, some
kind of rebate program or that we're gonna
Pased.
Absolutely. No. There's a whole bigger issue, which is do we have enough money to do this?
Well yeah the policy is in it's uh Just to identify and evaluate it. If there's even a program that can Works. For the coming.
I understand. I'm just saying that I think it needs to be sort of structured as a Do some kind of B B program or We're gonna spend admiral revenue to incentivize these agricultural property owners, but not
Alter the way their property is assessed. Reporting.
I'm a manager.
I
gotta both
hide it.
Spark Rancher has a bow five agricultural designation and whether it's snow or Pinnacle property taxes.
What possible incentive could you give them? With an arc it It is offering them. Millions.
Or
tens of millions. To cut your something with little bitty pieces.
I'm just
not sure that it that it actually works in the market forces Or under the under the way the state. All works without the assessment. Uh yeah, but big.
I mean I'm not sure it's a huge rebate, but you could read the extent they pay any taxes, which I realize is significantly reduced. I think the county could say whatever taxes we do pay, we will rebate them to you. You stay at it. What I'm getting at at least.
Okay, thank you for my ten dollar refund, but this guy just offered me ten million dollars to shell this land
I keep the change. I I I I get your point and And it may require more than the third. More than just a remake, it would maybe require expenditure are beyond what their payments and taxes. But then it's into we even have the money to do this. So
At the risk of sounding crash.
The only way
There's a lot of inverse of
positive.
They're
trying to hear Sandy. Don't seem to understand. Property price. Inquires. Practically great. And I don't want this in my backyard. I don't want them building on this.
And one of the short answers to that is the only way you could ensure that the property was stored he was not developed was
Well, right. So then the county commissioners They can't buy properties. Right. And and they can't go by up the entire northeast rural area to guarantee that it's going to be Uh,
right.
Maybe there are some jurisdictions that have bought the develop the development rights of the parcel without buying the fee. In other words, they could say We want it to stay at it, so we're gonna buy the development rights and then you can just keep it as addicts. I don't I don't know if we have the money to do that either, I mean it'd be clear,
but but it but
If you don't I just don't.
What's with the Huntington?
Still me. Nice.
the analogy we we effectively do this with ecological court. I mean there are places where we've Bought and conservation easement a little fee. And we're effectively buying the development rights. Yeah. The difference there is we have a whole penny for Pasco that is a funding source. Did it was voted in by the voters to do that very thing.
We don't have such a thing for this, so There was just some biological reasons behind it too, some scientific. Again, I'm I'm just saying that it would for it to be successful, it would have to be that level of funding, I think.
And what their developer rights I will show you as I don't I don't practice now that you didn't Development rights to begin with. They were not to get a permit from either the state or the federal government to develop those.
There's also a floodplain benefit. As well, when you buy an eastern. Of course, because a lot of them are blocked rivers and we don't want to
Geez it big. The point is. Okay, you bought their development rights and I would I would argue with you
because
as the
engineer that designs and they weren't developable but again.
Anything, but They argue
that they can't develop
them
and but I don't want to get into all that. I my point is is that The difference there is a there's a funding stream that was voted in by the voters to do that thing. There is no funding stream to do this. And and where it's been successful. is in those jurisdictions that maybe put it in their sales tax. to buy it development rights in a rural area. That's where that's where I've seen it be successful. I tend to agree with you that just Maybe helping them a little bit on
their harbage access is probably not gonna be Successful. Unless you actually have enough money to buy the true development rights are gonna take a lot more money than this yeah So I Even so
I agree with your legal concern, thank you. Um
Right. There may also be the practical concern as well.
Whoop you get none. Thank you for those discussions.
useful to us because we can go back and Update the policy language. Craft it in a way that We can evaluate in the future and see if it's something that can be done. At least you're getting an out
there. Yeah, Mr. Mitty's overall opinion is it's it's almost implying that it's almost giving the northeast Pascoa residents
Sort of an empty promise in the sense that It it sounds like you're doing something. Sure. Basically preserve the egg. But without a funding source? It seems like kind of an empty promise. I I tend to agree that just Maybe revealing a little bit of the revenue on taxes is not gonna do it. It's it's easy to more robust funding source to Truly bio through development right so
you can compete with the than are trying to
build you know, buy it for development.
Like it makes you wonder like should you put something in your compliance that is not
Ever gonna be implemented in practice without a true funding. I mean the difference with the ecological quarters is we knew we had the penny for Pasco money. To accomplish that. that elimination of density in those corridors. That was always the backstop for when we did a free module order of You don't have
a financial backstop for this.
I think But you're trying to achieve. As parent.
Okay, I was
Yeah. Obviously it's super old.
Yeah, I mean if if you were if it was more of a generic policy that says that we're gonna look at identifying fund sources too. Effectively acquired a melting rights in the rural area. Didn't that make some sense? Because at least it says we're going to investigate whether Maybe when we renew the next penny, if you look at that or We create some other button source to do this. That might make more sense than trying to be so specific about Try to do this through. It's a property
tax.
program that May not be successful. I like that. I mean I'm sorry. I might drive you
up. Yeah, because suspect.
Curve, right? I mean if we as a county continue to do that, whether it's any Fabesco dollars or other dollars. And again we have twenty five percent of our Property conservation.
But it's like a bigger Yeah, we can generalize the problem.
This is locally having this discussion with you.
Yeah, it's not difficult to see.
It is Mage. regarding taxation. Yeah,
That just doesn't seem like the right Please.
Well, if he rephrases this as a more general policy to identify
funding sources to do this. Then you don't have that concern.
in the entirety all the
eleven chapters, however many were this. Comes up like this.
I think he's got the message. Okay.
Probably can move on. Thank you.