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entitled to. If we are going to give it, we
should give it by free will of the General
Assembly granting it and not by consti-
tutional mandate.
What does it mean at the present time?
In a study recently done by Peter Howes,
who happens to be on my staff for the
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Mr.
Howes discovered that what the meaning
of this is is not only to state the obvious
which Mr. Case conceded this morning but
it also points out that in Baltimore County,
for example, the existing operation of this
law means that the assessable base is re-
duced by $12.7 million dollars.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hanson,
you have two minutes left, including the
question period.
DELEGATE HANSON: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
In Montgomery County it means a loss in
the assessable base of $83.4 million dollars.
In Harford County it means an increase on
the property tax rates of 14-cents per hun-
dred dollars in valuation for non-farm
owners. In Montgomery and Prince George's
Counties, it means a similar increase on
property tax rates. In Carroll County, it
means a 19-cent increase on the non-farm
tax rate.
To give a few examples of the way this
tends to operate at the present time, in my
county there is one tract of land with 164
acres which sold last year for $479,000. It
was assessed under the law for $105,680
and the tax on it was $462, which is about
what I pay on my single family home on
an individual lot.
I could give you a whole series of other
examples of the way in which this is sub-
ject to abuse at the present time and cer-
tainly, ladies and gentlemen, if definitions
of open space are subject to abuse, this is
an equally, at least, subject to abuse and
it means the other taxpayers pay more. It
is highly probable as we g-o out from the
central cities of Baltimore and Washing-
ton into the genuinely rural areas of this
State that the ratio of assessment under
this act to the market value of the land
becomes nearly equalized. In fact, there are
some tracts in Carroll County, the Agri-
culture Department study shows, that are
assessed at a higher rate under this act
than they would have been if they had been
assessed on the sale value as other land in
the county under a uniform policy of as-
sessment. I point this out not to tell you
that at this point we should enact into the
Constitution something that would repeal
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the inequities but rather to point out we
should leave the constitution free so that
the legislature can deal with these inequi-
ties as it sees fit when it sees fit to do so.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Hanson.
Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, I
rise in opposition to the amendment of-
fered by my good friend, Delegate Hanson.
I should say at the outset that he has
attempted to over-simplify the problem in
an effort to obtain your vote.
The first point he makes is that the
clause is unnecessary because he said in
answer to a question he asked me last
night I stated that the General Assembly
could, with the questioned clause elimi-
nated, do exactly the same thing as it could
do with the clause in the section,
This, of course, is true but it is only
half the story. The other half of the story
is not what the legislature could do but
what it would not do. If the clause is
taken out, then there would be no as-
surance that our farmers in this State, I
mean by that the legitimate farmers,
would be protected. With the clause in, it
means that the farmers will get the protec-
tion which they deserve and which they
have asked and which they would receive
under this section.
The first point is, Delegate Hanson has
only told you one half the story. Remove
this clause, protection for the farmers
disappears.
The second point that Delegate Hanson
makes is that he is confused by my state-
ment concerning the Alsop case and wheth-
er it has or has not been overruled by the
proposal which the Committee makes. Let
me state to him so that he can understand
it because I believe everyone else in here
does, that my statements go to the point
that the result of the Alsop case would be
overruled if this section is adopted as it
exists. Put differently, what I am trying
to tell you is that the use criteria for
farming would disappear and other criteria
which the legislature might prescribe would
obtain —
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one min-
ute, Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: This means that
the legitimate farmer would be protected
under the language we have in the section
and the speculator would not.
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