Calling all Pennsylvania hearth.com members-anyone know anything about the "Clean and Green" (Act 31

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Badfish740

Minister of Fire
Oct 3, 2007
1,539
So one of these days we're going to escape from New Jersey-not anytime soon, but when we are finally ready to move it is definitely going to be over the river for a number of reasons, the primary one being that we're hoping to purchase a sizable piece of land (20 acres-maybe 30 if we can swing it?) which is simply out of our league on this side of the Delaware. However, property taxes on that much land still aint cheap, so I'm interested in the types of land preservation that is available in PA. Act 319/Clean and Green is simply tax reduction-basically, the way I understand it is this: Say you have 30 acres of forest. To a timber or pulp company the land is worth however much the timber on it is worth. To a developer looking to come in, subdivide it into 2 acre lots, and build homes, it's worth a lot more, which can drive the assessed value way up. Clean and Green allows the land to be assessed at what it is worth to the timber company-not the developer, which from what I understand usually results in a pretty decent tax break. I do have a few important questions though.

-The reason we want 20-30 acres of forested land is because we want privacy and a place to hunt-we have no desire to log it for the purposes of selling timber. However, we also plan to heat solely with wood, so I need to know what the regulations are about harvesting timber for the purposes of home heating fuel from land in Forest Reserve Land status.

-I'm also interested in what kinds of "strings" this tax break could come with. As you stated Bob, you can't get something for nothing. Is the state going to want to inspect the land every so often? Would I be prohibited from doing certain things on the land (off road vehicle use, etc...)?

I'm very interested in hearing from folks who are in this program and what they think of it, how the application process is, any pitfalls to avoid, etc...
 
know nothing about it, other than it sounds great! goodluck
 
I haven't heard of the program your talking about, but I do know there are some to preserve farms and large tracks of land. With a bit of research you should be able to understand it. PA is a great with low taxes. We to are from NJ and have a place there for the weekends. The problem now is they discovered Natural Gas under a huge area of PA and NY. It's like the California gold rush, oil companies buying drilling rights from any one they can. I think land prices must be going thru the roof. Let me know if I can help you with anything.

Tom
 
I'm clean and green.

No problems with harvesting what you need for heat. (The land doesn't even need to have trees on it) You get the tax break which basically builds upon itself every year. IF you or someone wanted to buy and develop it for use outside of the clean and green program, pay the back taxes to catch up on the difference. At some point in the future obviously, it becomes prohibitive to ever develop the land due to the back taxes owed (until of course one of the elected officials changes that for his buddy)
 
Im clean and green also the way i understand it is if you sell the land the taxes go back 7 years .
 
Wanting to escape NJ because the taxes are too high ---> I think everyone in the STATE has the same thoughts.

I know land up here in NNJ that is undeveloped is not taxed as highly. There is a farm preservation in my neck of the woods and if you have 5 or more acres and you have a garden stand, or sell fire wood, or sell christmas trees, or livestock ? you get a huge reduction in tax. A guy down the street has 84 acres and pays $ 500 in taxes.... really. I don't get it, but I wish I knew that before I bought my house. I would have gotten a farmette and sold christmas trees. We are just shy of 5 acres, or I would plant some today.

The problem in NJ is the taxes are not fair across the board and every little municipality has it's own government, rather than county government and services. It will never change. I can't wait to MOVE!
 
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