RTM Votes to Send PA 490 Town Policy Deliberations Back to Committee

The on Wednesday found merit in considering a town policy on when it voted unanimously to send the matter back to committee, with some members also expressing dissatisfaction with what some termed the vagueness of replies the Board of Assessors had supplied regarding the land classification system.

The matter will go to the Rules and Ordinances Committee.

In Connecticut, PA 490 allows municipalities to assess farm, forest or open space land value.  As a result, landowners whose property holds PA 490 status pay substantially lower property taxes, while the state maintains an important preservation tool. 

The consequences of the legislation hit the town of Branford hard in early 2009, when the town removed farmland status from the property today owned in part by .  Previously, the property was the home of Hilltop Orchards LLC.

The status of some of the Cooke family parcels is, with farmland status restored to some of the acreage

“We follow Connecticut state statutes,’” Representative James Cosgrove said he had heard, repeatedly, from the town’s assessor’s concerning its PA 490 designations.

“We’re here two years later,” said Cosgrove of the deliberations that have dominated the agendas of town bodies since Cooke’s farmland   We’re still without a town policy.  I don’t understand the resistance.”

In his remarks, RTM Clerk Dennis Flanagan concurred.  He noted that answers from the Board of Assessors to questions he had posed were what he termed really quite vague.

“I don’t think the town has a policy on 490.  We’re not getting an answer,” Flanagan said.

“The town does not have a policy toward 490,” said Cooke, who, throughout the meeting, frequently rose to participate in the evening’s discussions.  

Cooke had initiated a Citizens Petition concerning the creation of a town PA 490 policy. 

Contacted on Thursday, Joan Nichols, a government liaison specialist with the Connecticut Farm Bureau who co-authored the Farm Bureau’s , cautioned that the town does not need a policy with regard to either the farmland or forest components of the land classification scheme.

“There’s not such thing as needing to adopt a policy on farmland and forest land,” she said.  “The property either meets the criteria or it does not. 

“Some towns do open space,” she said of the open space component of PA 490.  “Some towns do not.  Open space is an optional classification that a municipality can choose to adopt.”

Before the close of the RTM meeting on Wednesday, Representative Patricia Nielson suggested that the town form one special committee solely to deal with the issues that have swirled around PA 490 and the town.