Acreage Tax

 

Under the Solid Waste Authority's (SWA) initial proposals to fund the new transfer station, owning parcels of land that produce no solid waste could drastically increase your financial burden, though there is currently a strong push to exempt these properties.

Here is how the proposals regarding empty parcels could affect you:

The Initial Proposal: The "Acreage Tax" Currently, the annual "Green Box" fee is only charged to occupied residences. However, to cover the massive costs of the new transfer station, the SWA proposed expanding this fee to cover all county properties, regardless of whether they have a structure, are occupied, or generate any waste at all. The SWA’s logic was that spreading the new costs across the county's 4,671 unimproved lots and 1,738 farms would help keep the base fee lower for everyone.

The Potential Financial Impact If this proposal is finalized without exemptions, you would be charged the new annual solid waste fee (projected to be anywhere from $310 to $600) for every single deeded parcel you own. For example, if you own the house you live in plus four separate, empty deeded fields or woodlots, your annual trash bill could quintuple. You would essentially be paying thousands of dollars in solid waste fees for land that produces absolutely zero trash.

The Pushback and Likely Exemption This proposed expansion has been met with intense outrage from the community, farmers, and large landowners, who have labeled it a deeply unfair "acreage tax". Even some SWA board members have expressed opposition to charging fees for every individual deeded lot a farmer owns, noting it would cause "incredible increases in expenses" for families.

Current Status Because of this fierce public resistance, the current consensus among the SWA indicates that they will likely exempt empty acreage, unimproved lots, and deeded fields. If this exemption is formally adopted, your empty parcels would not be charged, and your fee would only be based on your "residential unit" or occupied structures that actually generate waste. However, this exact fee structure is still being debated as the SWA finalizes its ordinances.