Last week, a legislative working group convened by Gov. Ned Lamont released its final recommendations on changing the state’s assessment process for taxing farmland. The Governor called the working group together in January, after state farmers protested a projected hike in land assessment values that would see certain land-use categories jump by 2,300%.
“Family farms are vital to Connecticut’s economy and are an essential part of our heritage,” said Lamont at that time. “Preserving Connecticut’s farmland and open spaces is critical to maintaining a reliable source of food and farm products, conserving our natural resources, and promoting the welfare and happiness of our residents. Our work to address concerns around rising land use values demonstrates our understanding of the challenges farmers face. Preserving these lands is about more than economics, it’s about sustaining a way of life that defines Connecticut, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with the farming community to keep Connecticut agriculture strong.”
The working group, which was headed by the state’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM) and Department of Agriculture (DOA) and comprised of farmers, agricultural organization representatives, municipal leaders, and assessors, officially convened on Feb. 10. The group evaluated Public Act 490, a state law passed in 1963, which laid out how assessment values for agricultural, forest, and other natural lands are determined. The bill was passed with the goal of preserving these lands by stipulating that assessment values for these land types, which are used to determine property taxes, are based on their current land use value, not on the value they might produce if developed for other uses.
Under the law, state officials at OPM and DOA adjust these values every five years based on information from surveys sent to farmers who lease or rent out their land. The working group attributed initial spikes in land valuation to a lack of farmer responses to the survey and to an anachronistic, soil-based classification system for determining land-use values. According to the report, one classification’s assessment value was determined based on only a single data point.
“The survey focused on farms in CT that rent farmland and the number of returned surveys was low,” reads the report. “It is not clear if the response rate was low, or if there are just few farms renting land.”
The impact of low data collection was land types most productive for agricultural uses seeing smaller increases, with Tillable A, reserved for the state’s most productive farm soil, seeing an increase of 73%, while the state’s non-productive land types, most notably swampland, increased in value by 2,325%.
In response, the group recommended that the five-year surveys be replaced by an annual one, that surveys be sent out to a larger cohort of farmers who are allowed to complete them in a wider variety of ways, and that the original classification system be replaced with one based on land use. The group recommended that landowners who participate in the program report their data — such as annual acreage owned or leased for crops, orchards, or pastures — to assessors annually. The recommendations acknowledged that for the five-year survey cycle to be replaced with a yearly one, legislators will have to amend PA-490 next session.
“The five-year survey cycle produced limited data that contributed to inconsistencies in the 2025 rate update,” reads the report. “This recommendation establishes continuous annual reporting to base future valuations on current-use data.”
Instead of land classifications based on soil type, which the group found “contributed to the grouping of dissimilar farming operations under shared categories,” classifications will be based on land use. It is recommended that the existing classes be replaced with eight new ones: land used for annual crops, for orchards, for pastures or hay, farm woodlands, non-productive lands, DEEP forestland, waterfront property for maritime commercial use, or submerged property for aquaculture.
Additionally, the group recommended that there be greater safeguards in place to prevent future surprise jumps in assessments, such as a “data scarcity safeguard,” a minimum data threshold that needs to be met for the values to be approved, and a 20% review trigger. If these two safeguards are implemented, anytime an assessment is based on fewer than 20 data points per land use category, or anytime recommended values would increase by more than 20% over the previous five-year period, a review committee would automatically be convened to determine the path forward.
Lastly, the group recommended a two-year pause on adjusting the land values to give state officials time for greater data collection. Until then, participating landowners will be taxed at the 2020 values.
“These recommendations update the PA 490 valuation process to reflect the current time and honor the spirit and intent of the original PA 490 program,” said Bryan Hurlbut, the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture. “Connecticut is committed to keeping land available for farming, and your contributions have helped shape a path toward that goal. These recommendations will serve as a strong foundation as the legislature and others consider how best to support the future of agriculture in our state.”
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
