There are several things about our 5.6 acre piece of property that makes it unique and why we purchased it. First off, and often the most noticeable, is we live on an airport. A taxi way runs alongside our backyard, and 100 yards in front of our front door is a runway. I have been on conference calls, and people ask, “what is that noise?” I don’t even hear it, but it is a Cessna 208 Caravan, and they will hear it again in 15 minutes if they are out skydiving. We have a hanger attached to the house with our Cessna 172 in it. We are always just minutes from flying off somewhere.
Just north of our property, there are 2 parallel rows with 8 homes each that create a community called “Flyers Haven.” These rows of homes are separated by a shared grass taxiway. They are nice 1.5 acre lots that all have access to the airport via taxiway. Unlike us, they have covenants, conditions, & restrictions (CC&Rs). They don’t have major restrictions, but they also can’t have any type farm animal or even chickens. They also can’t operate a business out of their homes. The rule we all share is that we can’t use the taxiway for anything but airplanes and that we must maintain it (regular mowing). Out of these 16 homes, only 3 currently have airplanes and fly.
There are also 4 houses south of us that have access to the airport. These are accessible via a private road that starts at the end of the county road. These properties are also fairly unique, but none of them are operating as a farm, and they don’t have airplanes.
The benefits we have from our property in between these two groups are: 1) We have immediate access to the runway without having to taxi far. 2) We can operate a farm and have animals. 3) We get a tax break with farm land. 4) We don’t have many rules.
Since we purchased out property over 5 years ago and turned it into a farm, we have been able to get 4.6 acres of it turned into farm forest deferral. This means that property taxes on that portion is less. To achieve that, we had to prove that we have been using it for farm purposes for a minimum of three calendar years. We operated as G&E Ranch LLC in 2015-2017, filed our taxes in the winter of 2018 and applied for farm forest deferral in the spring of 2018. The county assessor came out to inspect the property and granted our request. As long as we continue to operate as a farm, property taxes will be marginally less.
Recap of Unique: Small farm on a private runway without CC&R’s.
Recent Comments