Our map of the week illustrates one of the many ways to see the impact of the Vermont’s current use program on a community and the state. The data is from the 2010 Annual Report from the Division of Property Valuation, Vermont Department of Taxes. The ideal representation would be to include the percent of a community in federal, state, or community owned land area as well. This is apparent with a closer look at the map. Communities with large tracts of Federal land have some of the smallest areas enrolled in the Current Use program. In addition our more populous “urban” or “suburban” communities also rank low.
Download a PDF of the Percent Current Use 2009 map
The Green Mountain National Forest preserves a large swath of the state. Looking at the list in the table of communities with a larger than 60% of land area in current use, 7 of the 22 are farm-based. The rest of the list is primarily forested communities.
For more details, the 2010 Annual Report can be found at: http://www.state.vt.us/tax/pvrannualreports.shtml.
Map prepared by Katie Budreski and David Healy, Stone Environmental Inc., Montpelier VT 05602, 802.229.1870, kbudreski@stone-env.com or dhealy@stone-env.com.
