APB agenda 092700 - Laserfiche WebLink

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o Page 2 2. Find a way to allow farms with less than 80 qualifying acres to participate in the program. Staff will review the state statutory language regarding minimum acreage requirements, compare other county programs such as Durham County, and report back. 3. Examine NCDOT provisions regarding moving farm equipment along roads (speed limit). Staff will contact representatives at NCDOT regarding the procedure to change speed limits in farming communities. 4. Pursue a farmer -to- farmer land transfer program that would be exempt from the tax rollback. This may be a difficult accomplishment since it would likely require special legislation. The APB can continue to promote it as an incentive and see if it could be pushed forward by the legislative delegation. 5. Look at old ideas: 0 Property tax exemption for farm buildings, machinery and equipment; 0 Fifty- percent deferral of use -value assessed property taxes; 0 Abatement of property taxes on land donated as conservation easements; 0 Consideration of agricultural conservation easement eligibility for local, state, or federal farmland preservation programs. The first 3 items require special legislation and were not pursued in the past due to the anticipated negative support, statewide. Stancil asked for other ideas to be included in the report preparation. Strayhorn asked if other states have incentives that could be investigated. Given the statutory restraints in NC, the County may be limited in its ability to use programs from other states. Staff will reexamine the information from Phillip Gottwals, regarding Virginia and Maryland. The idea of incentives for farmland preservation and "keeping farmers farming" has been a hot topic for several years. A lot of this same information has been communicated between Farmland Preservation efforts and Farmland Conservation Trusts. The APB asked Stancil if Agricultural Districts qualify under Governor Hunt's million acre preserve program. Whitt suggested encouraging the governor's office to initiate ways to enhance VAD incentives. Stancil explained that the specifics of the program are still uncertain, however, the program is designed to include state preserves, wildlife refuges, natural parks and state parks, which covers a lot of acreage. The APB agreed that by including active and critical farms in the governor's program, VAD incentives might be improved and local VAD programs enlarged. Staff to explore possibilities. Stancil encouraged the APB to focus on two or three of the more accomplishable goals rather than pursuing several goals and risk not particularly accomplishing any. The APB discussed the idea of a two- tiered approach to VAD incentives. One tier could address local issues that the BOCC could achieve in Orange County, such as simplifying the agreement and working with DOT to reduce speed limits. The other tier could consist of more complicated DRAFT MINUTES 2