Oregon 2 Acre Minimum Designated Forestland Requirement

This blog was started by my interest in the 2 acre minimum requirement for submission of a request to the county assessor for designation of property as Designated Forestland and therefore assessed as the fixed rate of $74.83 per acre for tax year 2016-17.  That fact was discovered when reviewing property within the city limits of Bend, Oregon that had been granted this designation by the county assessor.  Those same properties, if they were not classified as Designated Forestland would be taxed on an assessment of approximately $200,000.00 per acre.

Cities are for people and their structures such as residential and commercial buildings as well as schools and churches and hospitals and government buildings and hundreds of miles roads, water and sewer lines, etc connecting all the structures.

Large tracts of forests are for trees and animals that populate them in a natural ecosystem.  Trees on large tracts of forestland that were present when Fremont explored the area in 1843 were cut and hauled to the wood mill in town in the 20th century.  The forest was the reason for the establishment and growth of Bend.  Residents from that time period would laugh at the fact that current residents would plant and grow trees on a minimum of 2 acres in their backyard within the city limits for the purpose of harvesting them for market profit....long after the owners that planted the trees were dead. 

Privately owned Designated Forestland within the city limits the purpose of which is to grow trees for harvest to market like an agricultural crop?  It's not natural!  Not natural to the nature of a city.  It takes a lot of land that does not have a higher use purpose to grow trees for profitable harvest!  Why is growing of trees for profit within the city incentivized by a fixed low assessment value of $74.83 per acre taxed at a rate of approximately $15.00 per one thousand dollars in assessed value?  A city tax payer having the minimum requirement of 2 acres of Designated Forestland property within the city limits of Bend would therefore be taxed $2.24 on the assessed value ($150.00) of that property

Beats me!

That is why this blog "Designated Forestland" was started:  To look fore some answers and logic reasoning behind this situation.

I own about a quarter acres of vacant wooded property next to my home in the West Hills of Bend.  I bought it for $220,000.  My 2016-17 tax on this property was $844.00.  It has an assessed  Real Market Value of $170,290.00 and Maximum Assessed Value of $55,380.00.