Clean Water:
Conservation Use Tax Treatment Another Approach to Stream Buffers

SB 604 will reward owners of stream buffer lands for maintaining the naturally vegetated protections by making favorable tax treatment automatic.  Buffer owners are already eligible for “Conservation Use” tax status, which lowers the ad valorem tax on the land in the buffer, but they must make a “covenant” with the county that commits them to protecting the buffer, and these covenants must be renewed every decade.  SB 604, accompanied by a Constitutional Amendment, SR 1104,  removes the requirement for filing the covenant on buffer land.  The buffer is automatically accorded the Conservation Use status by the county tax office, as long as the natural buffer is undisturbed.  If the buffer is harmed, the tax break on the land ends.  This approach to Stream Buffers rewards good management practices.

Status

Action Needed

Background

The idea behind waiving the covenant requirement is that unlike other Conservation Use property, like farm and timberland, stream buffers cannot be developed for uses other than as stream buffers.  Since the buffers need to be permanent, as essential components of the stream eco-system, the protective tax treatment should likewise be permanent. 

Sen. Seth Harp of Columbus wants to protect stream buffers because they are the most cost-efficient way to maintain water quality and to protect wildlife habitat. He also understands that landowners who have these buffers on their land don’t like the idea of paying taxes on the undevelopable buffers as if they were prime roadside property.   Stream buffers, like all floodplain lands, are eligible for lower taxes under the Conservation Use provisions of GA’s tax laws.  In order to take advantage of this opportunity to pay lower taxes, landowners must make a “covenant” with the county where the lands lie, pledging to keep it in the Conservation Use for ten years.  The covenants must be renewed every decade to remain in effect.

Unlike other Conservation Use properties, like forests or farmland, stream buffers cannot be converted to other, more remunerative uses, like residential or commercial development—they are going to be stream buffers perpetually.  Sen. Harp is proposing that stream buffers be automatically carried on tax roles as Conservation Use lands, and that no covenant be required to obtain the lower tax treatment, as long as the undisturbed natural stream buffer is maintained.  This requires amending the State Constitution, so there is an Amendment Resolution, and an enabling bill.  These bills passed the Senate unanimously on the 30^th Day, and went to the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which sent them to the Ad Valorem Tax subcommittee under former Ways and Means Chair Richard Royal. 

Rep. Richard Royal has sponsored practically every bill dealing with Conservation Use for many years, and can be counted upon to look closely at proposals to alter the provision.  He has objected to the Harp proposal for several stated reasons:  1) a “local impact fiscal note” should be attached to it, stating its estimated cost to county governments.  2) If it needs a fiscal note, it should have started in the House, not the Senate.  3) County tax assessors are complaining about the cost in reduced taxes. 

One source of confusion lies in the way the bill amends the Conservation Use law:  Since all floodplain lands are now eligible for the reduced tax status, stream buffers are not set aside as a separate land use from flood plains. The new law has to separate the buffers from the ordinarily much larger adjacent floodplain lands that contain the narrow buffer strips, in order to waive the covenant requirement on the buffers.

A Constitutional Amendment requires no fiscal note, since it mandates only a vote of the electors to change the constitution, and neither raises nor spends any money by itself.  Even if SB 604 needs a fiscal note, and one is not prepared in time for passage this session, the Amendment, SR 1104, should be passed on for the voters to decide.  Most of the complaints about stream buffers center on the question of private landowners’ burden of taxation for these lands, which serve the needs of other landowners in flood and erosion control, and the uses of the whole community for maintenance of water quality.  It is puzzling that a tax measure directly addressing these concerns should run into such opposition.