https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2008193190_danny21.html
King County has
apparently decided that they are the body that gets to decide exactly what
constitutes a “legitimate” farming activity. If they decide that what you
are doing doesn’t constitute their definition of farming, they provide you with
a bill for back taxes.
So, at this point,
boarding horses does not constitute farming, according to King County.
They are issuing tax bills that are likely to put several operations out of
business and economically cripple a bunch of families at the same time.
This will also result in a lot of horses needing homes, which will place many
horse owners, not to mention the horses, in very difficult
positions.
If horse boarding can
be delegitimized as a farming activity in the name of propping up county revenue
coffers, what farming activity will be up for extinction in King County
next? Will you be required to earn a “qualifying percentage” of your
family’s income from “legitimate” farming activities in order to avoid being
taxed off your land? Will other counties follow King County’s
example? How many acres of farmland will be converted to crops of houses
and strip malls?
Just a few questions
for your day . . .
Sunday, September 21, 2008 - Page
updated at 12:00 AM
Hey,
please lay off the farmland
Seattle Times staff
columnist
Remember Lisa Sferra, the owner of a
Seattle horse farm who got a whopping $8,200 drainage-tax
bill?
I wrote about her plight in August.
How the city jacked her farm's drainage tax an eye-watering 835 percent in one
year.
Hundreds of you wrote in support of
one of Seattle's last working farms. And to say it's City Hall that needs a
thorough stall cleaning.
Well, it turns out that little
controversy was chicken feed compared with what happened
next.
The next week, Sferra went to her
mailbox to find another letter, this one from King County.
It said the county was making a
change. Farms that only board horses are no longer considered "farms." So they
don't qualify for reduced property taxes.
Not only that, but horse-boarding
farms like Sferra's would owe seven years' worth of back taxes, penalties and
interest.
Her bill:
$80,000.
"You start to wonder: Am I doing
something wrong?" Sferra said the other day. "We're here doing our own thing,
and we keep getting these letters from the government with these bombs inside of
them.
"I mean, one after another,
threatening our home, our livelihood. It's like a full-time job keeping up with
it."
This is a family that has lived on 20
acres near Rainier Beach since 1919. With its corrals and ramshackle barns, its
25 horses and one pregnant cow, there's no place like it left in
Seattle.
Yet she's hardly alone in feeling
under assault. Horse boarders in the suburbs have gotten the same letters. Since
the '70s, their farms have been farms for tax purposes. Now, mysteriously,
they're not.
Ken Starr boards 10 horses at his
4-acre Starry Night Farm east of Woodinville. It looks like a farm, with a barn,
pasture and riding corral. He got the county letter defarming his farm. He owes
$27,000 in back taxes and interest.
"This is enough to drive some of the
horse farms under," Starr said. "None of us are sure what the point is. They're
just going to end up with a bunch more strip malls out
here."
I called King County and asked what
the point is. They said to get the tax break, a horse farm must do more than
house and feed horses. It has to breed and sell them to be a legit, working
horse farm.
I think the argument is that farming
for recreation doesn't cut it. You have to farm for production. And so on that
technicality, we're going to drive acres of farmland into the arms of
developers?
Sferra is arguing her farm does more —
it has chickens, sheep and that one cow — so she's hopeful of keeping her farm
tax status. And avoiding that $80,000 bill.
There is also some good news from City
Hall. This week the Seattle City Council will take up an ordinance to reduce
Sferra's drainage tax to a sane level (about $1,000 instead of $8,000). It also
applies to 67 other open-space properties (including Seattle's only other farm,
a 4-acre horse farm near the West Seattle reservoir).
Credit goes to council members Richard
Conlin and Tom Rasmussen for acknowledging a mistake. But mostly to all who
wrote, called and rallied to save the farm. You may not be able to fight City
Hall. Sometimes you can persuade it.
Still, I can't write about and you
can't rally for every farm now being taxed to oblivion. So here's a plea to our
local governments: Can you please leave the farms alone?
Danny Westneat's
column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.