With farm hand Chuck Bender driving the tractor, the hay ride heads out from the corn maze with a load of guests at Craven Farm at the base of Lord Hill southeast of Snohomish on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2021 during COVID-19. Bender fabricated the dividers in the hay wagon so that the farm could conform to the social distancing requirements.
Photo by Doug Ramsay
On Friday, the state House unanimously approved a bill meant to clarify and narrow down what can cause a working farm to lose its eligibility for a special property tax relief program called Open Space. House Bill 1261 now heads to the Senate.
Last summer, some working farms in the area that also host weddings received notices that converting structures such as barns into venue spaces violated the ag-focused Open Space exemption.
In these violation cases, county auditors determined the portion of farmland used for venue hosting no longer qualified for the reduced Open Space land use tax rate. The charge for changing the use is seven years of back taxes and fines.
The decisions were being done interpretatively based on how county auditors apply the state rulebook.
State Reps. Sam Low (R-Lake Stevens) and April Berg (D-Mill Creek) developed a bill that applies clearer uniformity in the rules after talking with affected farmers.
Multiple Snohomish County farmers and county leaders testified in favor of the bill.
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Prior coverage:
After tax bills hit farms that branched into being venues, lawmakers intervene
SNOHOMISH — A wedding at a farm can be the perfect backdrop, but those farms that converted their barns into regularly booked wedding spaces or other uses got put on the back foot this summer. The barn’s not agricultural anymore, so the land around it is not allowed to be given a special lowered property tax rate named Open Space. The tax fee for changing the land use out of Open Space is seven years of back taxes plus a 20% penalty. At least a handful of farms in the Snohomish River Valley received sizable tax bills last summer. Local lawmakers noticed. They have a new bill to clarify the rules, and the county assessor is on board.
