@redenigma @MrGoat Jeez, that sounds like a lot of paperwork. But for the savings? Even I'd do it.

😂

@GeezerWench @MrGoat well, your forester files the forestry part of the plan, & the rest requires mapping the property. my property was put into current use in the late 60s, & i've only changed the forestry part.
the bad thing about current use is that if the property stops being used for what the plan says, you have to pay all the back taxes to when it was put into current use. so, if i sell to a developer they'd have to pay all the back taxes to take it out of current use

@GeezerWench @MrGoat except my land isn't actually sub-dividable, because of the wetlands :) there might be one spot you could squeeze in a 2nd house in the current goat pasture, but that's iffy because it's really glacially rocky (and would extend to where the dead people are & might not be able to fit a septic system because of those 2 things)

@redenigma @MrGoat
PA is very rocky, as well in spots. Luckily, we have septic tank with a drain field. No electricity required. Some damn fool came up with an alternative that just strikes me as a scam.

Sand mounds. A hole still has to be dug to set a 3-chambered tank where the black and grey water run to. Beyond that tank where a drain field would be is a special pile / mound of rock/gravel/sand, covered by dirt and grass. Solids sink in the tank. Black water is pumped up to the top layer

@redenigma @MrGoat of sand, requiring electricity, and the water trickles down. But it's supposed to be evaporative and makes the water go thru more filters before reaching the aquifer, leaving yucky particulates behind in the sand. After so many years (hopefully 20), that sand has to be replaced. While the chambered tank has to be pumped out every 5 years. Here it's 5 years. We just had our septic pumped. $300.

So you drive by a house and see a big, stupid hump in the yard? Sand mound.

@redenigma You'd have to explain that very carefully to whoever might want to buy it.

Jeez. Who could afford the back taxes to change the use?

@GeezerWench well, that's actually the point, to keep farm/forest lands as farms/forests, not developments.
it cuts into the developer's profits to change the use. example: there used to be a 150 acre Jersey cow farm in Nashua. just before the state implemented current use, the family sold the farm to a developer because they could no longer afford the taxes. the developer put up over 500 units of condos, a 1000 unit apartment complex & a strip mall... you can imagine what that did to traffic

@GeezerWench it pushed the state into deciding they needed to protect open spaces, farms & forests though

@redenigma Egads. The traffic would have suddenly been really shitty.

Damn shame when a farmer has to sell because of taxes. Around here, and in MD, you can spot a "tax sale" sometimes. You'll see a huge field, acres and acres of corn or whatever, and there'll be a nice square chunk cut out by the road, half to one acre, with a house. Just kind of random.

Farmer sold off a piece of land to pay bills or taxes.