Open Space Conservation Deserves a Tax Break

The USDA’s “Open Space” website reminds us that it is the conservatives today who seek to conserve green, undeveloped tracts of land.  Quality of life goes with maintaining the way God made the natural world–with trees, flowers, and grass in open settings.  In contrast, liberals today are more and more committed to development and progress and the pursuit of ever more tax money.

      The USDA lists three primary enemies of open space:

*  Conversion refers to the replacement of trees with houses, buildings, lawns, and pavement.
*   Fragmentation refers to the disturbance zone beyond the footprint of the development.
*   Parcelization refers to the trend that forest properties are becoming smaller and smaller, as larger lots are divided into separate ownerships.

     Pennington County in western South Dakota is currently struggling with this issue, having recently removed the preferred lower tax rates on “agricultural” landowners who have fewer than 160 acres.  Forty acres was the minimum before.  A goal was to prevent these people from turning a huge profit when the land was later sold and rezoned for commercial development.  Some questioned the agricultural pretensions of the small parcels.

     Others believe that all citizens benefit when open space is conserved, with or without agricultural productivity.   Shouldn’t something be preserved for future generations?  Landowners who are holding  on to open space should get a tax break, shouldn’t they?

      In Pennington County, many of those affected by the increased taxes will  be forced to break up their the acreages to make ends meet.  More conversion, fragmentation, and parcelization will result.  Some might think of attractive golf courses and chic new housing developments, but development could just as easily mean substandard sprawl.

     The USDA site realizes “Open space lands may be protected or unprotected, public or private.” Private landowners may well be the better preservers of natural beauty.  Big government tends to make “protected” areas a magnet for overuse and administrative control.