Agenda - 06-30-1988 - Laserfiche WebLink

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120 410 dairies are in Bingham Township, maintaining approximately 1800 milk cows . Fifteen percent of the County's beef cattle are also located in Bingham Township. The leading crops in Bingham Township are corn and small grains. Approximately 7500 acres in the Township are devpted to these two crops, representing almost one-half of the corn and small grain acreage in the County. Much of this is used as feed for livestock. Like many other rural areas within a relatively short travel time of an urban center, Bingham Township has seen a long term and steady trend of farmland conversion. From 1955 to 1977, the year the North Carolina Crop and Livestock Reporting Service discontinued township farm acreage counts, Bingham Township idle and harvested cropland dropped 1450 acres, 11% of the township total. Virtually all the drop occurred in cropland, while pastureland remained unchanged (Table 3- ) . Since 1977 anecdotal evidence combined with high residential growth rates lead one to believe the trend is continuing. Bingham Township acreage enrolled in the Orange County use value taxation program, however, which allows property to be taxed according to farm use rather than the higher market value, increased by 41% from 1981 to 1986. This does not mean, though, that farm acreage is increasing in the Township. The program is relatively new, dating back to 1981 in Orange County, and enrollment in the program increases as knowledge of the program becomes more widespread. Other factors would seem to reinforce the notion that the program is being used a means of protecting existing farmland from encroaching development rather than to put new farmland into production. Some of the areas in the Township with the highest increases in land enrolled in the program are also areas of high development activity. Additionally, the size of an average Bingham Township parcel enrolled in the program has steadily declined since 1981. This would seem, to indicate that smaller landowners, who previously might have thought that the reduced tax burden was not worth the paperwork or regulation involved, may have changed their minds in the face of higher assessments and the widening gap between use and market value. The 1985 assessed market value of Bingham Township property enrolled in the program was 84% higher than use value. What this means in dollar amounts is that, on the average, a fifty acre parcel of land enrolled in the program would have an assessed value of $69,250 less than 3. 11-6