Current excise policy aims to protect open land from development, such as this field in Lyme.
Photo by Amanda Gokee / New Hampshire Bulletin
Kelley Monahan’s home in Orford, New Hampshire, features eight acres of land and two ponds along the Connecticut River. It became her piece of rural paradise after she left Hartford, Connecticut, 25 years ago.
For Monahan, there are a few metrics that describe rural life in northern New Hampshire along the Vermont border. When the pandemic forced businesses to close, the Grafton County land registry office, where she works as a registrar, remained open. Many did not have remote access to the internet.
When Monahan looks through the state’s current land use report each year, she realizes how many of her neighbors are taking advantage of tax breaks on their property, leaving the burden to fall on other taxpayers.
“Any idiot with more than 10 acres of land can just say, ‘I don’t pay taxes, I’m a tree farmer,'” she said. “That’s an abuse of the current system of use.”
Current use law in New Hampshire is designed to encourage conservation and protect the state’s natural areas. This policy dates back to the state’s agricultural history and ensured that local farmers could keep their land without being displaced by property taxes. For homeowners who own 10 acres or more – and designate the property as forest, farmland or unproductive land – the state provides property tax relief.
For farmland, homeowners can receive rebates ranging from $25 to $425 per acre. For unproductive land, the rebate is $24 per acre. And for forest land, prices vary from $24 to $185 per acre, depending on the tree species and management documentation.
State law requires cities to provide tax breaks for current uses. Over 50 percent of New Hampshire’s land is currently in use.
For John Tobin, retired director of New Hampshire Legal Assistance, the state order does not provide any relief to the local taxing authority affected by it. The state is not funding any part of the tax relief intended to help the city make up for lost revenue.
“It’s a good policy. The policy of preserving open land, forests and agricultural land is a great policy,” he said. “Again, New Hampshire has a policy but doesn’t want to pay. That puts pressure on the cities.”
For Monahan, there is no doubt that Grafton County’s transfer rate – the highest among the 10 counties – is related to the application of the current use law. Over the past decade, the local government has taken possession of 618 properties in the north.
Take her hometown of Orford, for example. In the small town of 1,200 residents, 86 percent of the land is currently in use, with a small number of homeowners footing the bill for local services.
“Look at the relationship between current use and Grafton County and you might get the answer,” she said of the high number of deeds in the area. “They get taken off the tax rolls and shift the burden to Grandma and her old 4,000-square-foot house.”
