2 weeks Ago
IN 1973, New Hampshire enacted RSA79-A, commonly known as the “current use law,” to preserve open spaces in the state. It was billed as a property tax strategy to help landowners keep their land undeveloped — that land would be assessed at its present use rather than its highest potential use. At the time, New Hampshire was in the middle of a population growth spurt that ran from 1960, when the population of the state was 609,000 people, to 2000, when the population was 1.
24 million people. There were fears that the state would become overrun by bad, ugly development that would threaten its forested, rural character. There was anecdotal evidence of family farms having to sell off acreage due to increasing property taxes, and acres of forest being leveled to make way for shopping malls and housing developments.
The law, which overrides towns’ zoning laws or desire for investment, is simple: a 10-acre threshold is all that is needed to reduce one’s taxes by promising to keep forest forest, meadow meadow, farmland farmland. You can still continue to harvest trees or crops or graze animals, but you can receive a property tax break. If you allow public access for fishing, hunting or hiking, you can receive an even larger tax break.
The penalty for change is 10% of the new value. The plan has been wildly successful with 3 million of New Hampshire’s 5.74 million acres now in Current Use.
Unfortunately, the success of the plan has, by far, outstripped the growth spurt that our state seemed to think would go on forever. Since 2000, our state has only grown by 200,000 people to 1.4 million.
Most of that new growth is in and around our largest cities, while the populations of many of our small towns has dwindled. The number of school-aged children has dropped from 344,165 in 2000 to 252,000 in 2025. In my town of Hancock, 14,000 out of 19,000 acres are in current use.
Naturally, this drives up the value of the remaining acreage and raises the cost for development. Young families can no longer afford houses or land for building because the value of developable land has been artificially inflated by Current Use tax breaks. From John Malone’s (Liberty Media) 23,000 acres to summer people’s 50 acres, to old New Hampshire families’ ancient acreage, the wealthiest among us are being afforded an extravagant tax break that robs our towns and schools of the revenue and space they need to survive and thrive.
And make no mistake, this law is not about conservation. The landholders receiving these tax breaks still own the land. They have the freedom to do whatever they want with it.
When the price is right, they can sell it, develop it, strip it or mine it. And the cost of doing so, that 10%, will be minimal. Given the fact that the tax incentive makes owning large parcels of land for long periods of time relatively inexpensive, many of our towns may not be around to reap the 10% penalty when and if the land is finally made available.
This law is outdated. In a state of towns and local governance, it robs us of control over our own destiny. Local zoning is perfectly capable of deciding appropriate land use and development.
In Hancock, we have a five-acre minimum lot size for development outside of town center, which preserves the beauty of the town. There are also protections for wetlands that restrict unbridled development. I suggest we amend or repeal RSA-79A to release the space and investment money that our towns, schools and state need to prosper; and return them the power to govern their land.
We should be filling our towns and schools with young families. They’re the future..
