2008 Florida Greenbelt
Legislation
05/02/2008
No significant
proposals for changes to the
Agricultural
Classification/Greenbelt statute
(FS 193.461) appeared through
the entire Legislative session,
until the middle of the last
week.
A change was quietly and
with little attention added to
H909 and passed on the last day
of the session.
For the most part, the
bill covered other unrelated
property tax issues.
In FS
193.461(3)(b)1, the word
“utilized” was changed to
“used,” and is of no apparent
significance.
In FS
193.461(3)(b)4, which covers
criteria for qualification for
Agricultural Classification, to
“Size, as it relates to
specific agricultural use,”
the bill added “...but
in no event shall a minimum
acreage be required for
agricultural assessment.”
Interpretation of this
change may be interesting.
Size is still one of the
criteria; so what is the effect
of the change?
A minimum required
acreage apparently cannot now be
the sole criteria for
rejection of the
Greenbelt
application.
Most of the County
Property Appraisers have adopted
local guidelines or standards
for Greenbelt, including acreage minimums.
Many of these guidelines,
and the Silvicultural Greenbelt
Guidelines recently released by
the Florida Forestry
Association, also contain
language providing for
variance from the minimums.
Will the statutory change
eliminate minimum acreages from
the local guidelines?
Perhaps not, if the
variance language is still
included and the minimums are
only “guidelines.”
Although size
is generally interpreted as
acreage, the original statutory
language says nothing about
“acreage.”
The authors of the
original language likely
intended size to mean both size
in acreage and size of the
operation.
This was also my working
interpretation of the size
criteria during the 21 years I
worked with the Florida
Department of Revenue.
For example, a 400-acre
parcel of range pasture would
certainly present no issue with
acreage size.
If the owner had only 2
cows on it, the County Property
Appraiser would likely have an
issue with size of the
operation.
Although proposed in the
early 1970s, the State never
attempted development of
guidelines for acreage minimums
because the statute did not
appear to provide the authority
and the very large number of
“specific” agricultural uses
existing in Florida at the time.
