Farmland Preservation Committee Seeking Increase In SPLOST Funds

Oconee County’s Farmland Preservation Committee voted earlier this month to ask the Board of Commissioners to increase funding for protection of farmland in the county in the 2021 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum planned for the November Ballot.

In both the 2009 and current 2015 SPLOST, $500,000 is set aside for the purchase of conservation easements on farmland in the county that protect the land from future development.

The Farmland Preservation Committee voted to ask that the amount in the 2021 SPLOST be $120,000 annually, or $720,000 across the six years of the voter-approved 1 percent sales tax.

The increase in the funding reflects the increased value of land in the county, Thomas Verner, chair of the Preservation Committee, said at the meeting. Farmland is being assessed at between $15,000 and $20,000 per acre, the Committee was told, with the high end of that range becoming more common.

The goal of the Committee, Verner said, should be to have money to contribute to the purchase of the easement on at least one farm in each of the six years of the SPLOST.

Verner said people in the county have supported inclusion of farmland preservation in the past to maintain the county’s “agricultural and pastoral setting.”

For more on this story, with a video of the Committee meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.