Farms and Developers

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: The county commissioners have the power to declare a special zone--called an "EEZ" or "Enhanced Enterprise Zone"--so that they can lure industry to the county by giving them tax breaks. This scheme is being promoted by the Fulton Area Development Corporation. An EEZ lasts for 25 years once it's declared. We decided to meet with FADC but I was a little late. My friends had already gotten the full speech, so I had to catch up. So here's the deal: There are industrial parks the FADC wants to promote in town, but they can't get industry into them unless they can offer incentives, like freedom from some property taxes. If those incentives don't work, there are others, but they like the freedom from property taxes. To get the tax exemptions the county had to declare the entire census tract around the industrial parks “blighted.” Part of the “blighted” definition requires a 60% poverty rate. So sometimes they have to declare adjacent tracts blighted so that the average comes to 60% poverty rate. There’s another part of the definition that has to do with being platted. If you’re platted, you’re more un-blighted than if you’re not platted. So that means that the blighted zones are mostly farmland. Never mind that farmland is more valuable than ever and farmers are competing to buy more of it. Never mind that farmland takes very little taxes to run--corn plants don't go to school and they usually don't need the sheriff or fire departments to help them out. Never mind that most farmers pay their taxes regularly. Here's what FADC says: if you’re in the zone it’s the fault of the state law and FADC regrets that that’s how the law is written. I suggested that FADC work to get the law changed but they’re too busy. Looking at the map, there's 170 square acres, 1/4 of our county, in the blight zone. Conclusion: The conclusion is that it’s a matter of trust. If we trust FADC to only develop the land they’ve already got in their industrial parks, without penalizing the rest of us because they’ve exempted taxes in the EEZ, and if we think that all the future owners of our land can trust them also, well, you can make up your own mind about that.