PA 490 Special Committee Debuts

Wayne Cooke said Thursday evening, he learned the farmland status of his  property had been revoked on Oct. 1, 2008 only when he received a call from the on Jan. 29, 2009. In response to the loss of the farmland status for his property—much of which has been restored—Cooke became an activist and somewhat of a local authority on the matter. When a Special Committee convened on Thursday, he expressed his gratitude for it.

“I am enormously grateful for this committee and this meeting,” Cooke said well after the roughly two-hour meeting had begun.

In Connecticut, Public Act 490 allows municipalities to assess farm, forest or open space land based upon its use value rather than its fair market value.  As a result, landowners whose property holds PA 490 status pay substantially lower property taxes, while the state maintains an important preservation tool. 

Recently, member of the Representative Town Meeting asked the legislative body to consider defining a PA 490 policy for the town, and the result was the special committee chaired by David M. Baker that had its first meeting Thursday night.

The findings indicated that, while a broad solution to the provisions of PA 490 as it applies to farmland might not exist at the town level, some clarifications concerning how the provisions are applied might merit review.  

“I think it’s clear that an ordinance on farmland would not be effective,” said Town Attorney William Clendenen who, at Baker’s request, had researched the act and the state statutes that govern its farmland provisions—and, so, would supercede local actions—before the meeting began.  “I could not find a pre-emptive case on farmland [on the municipal level],” he said.

PA 490 places the determination of farmland status in the hands of a municipality’s assessor, with a landowner or farmer having the right to petition the Commissioner of Agriculture, among others, in the event of a conflict, the town attorney said.

“I don’t know of anyone from Branford that has positioned the Commissioner of Agriculture,” the attorney said.  

Baker noted that he had researched the websites of 100 municipalities in the state of Connecticut and found that they lacked local PA 490 policies.  What he did find, he said as he showed a piece of paper to the audience, was a websitefor the town of Coventry in Northeastern Connecticut that provides a summary of PA 490 farm and forest exemptions with steps for obtaining the classification.

In addition, Baker agreed with a number of persons at the meeting—the town attorney among them—who said that a process of notification for persons whose farmland status was in jeopardy was fair.

“I agree about notification,” Baker said. “It makes sense.”

“The foundation of all our civil rights come out of property,” attorney Clendenen affirmed.

Cooke noted that if he had had proper notification and the time to remedy his situation prior to the revocation of his farmland status three years ago “none of us would be sitting here.”

Members of the audience, which included farmer Jay Medlyn and also former selectman John Opie, contributed to the discussion, with Opie pointing to what he termed a gray area in the 490 act— this, the amount of acreage on a property that can qualify for farmland status—and Baker noting that the amount of acreage necessary for viable agriculture was among the considerations an assessor was tasked to review.

Baker acknowledged that municipal policies concerning open space considerations, which are among other land uses PA 490 covers, offered more flexibility for discussion at the local level.  He said that the committee would ask the full RTM to refer the PA 490 back to the special committee for additional review.