22. In this case, the Petitioners contend that a small
portion of the subject property’s land should be classified as agricultural
rather than residential. The statutory and regulatory scheme for assessing
agricultural land requires the Board to treat challenges to those assessments
differently than other assessment challenges. Indeed, the Indiana General Assembly
directed the DLGF to establish rules for determining the true tax value of agricultural
land. Ind. Code § 6-1.1-4-13(b). The DLGF, in turn, established a base rate to
be used in assessing agricultural land across the State of Indiana.
23. Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13 states, however, that “[i]n
assessing or reassessing land, the land shall be assessed as agricultural only
when it is devoted to agricultural use.” Ind. Code § 6-1.1-4-13(a) (emphasis
added). The word “devote” means “to attach the attention or center of
activities of (oneself) wholly or chiefly on a specified object, field, or
objective.” WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY AT 620.
24. Here, the Petitioners’ walking and exercising of animals
raised for 4-H fair projects clearly fall short of a devotion to agricultural
use. They failed to offer any evidence that their livelihood was in any way
dependent on farming or the agricultural use of the subject property. The
Petitioners also failed to offer any evidence as to how much time was devoted
to walking and exercising the animals on the land. Further, they failed to offer
evidence that their activities were “wholly or chiefly” attached to that field.
The Petitioners even acknowledged that the livestock was not raised on this
property; this property was only used to walk and exercise a few animals. The
Board therefore finds that the Petitioners failed to raise a prima facie case
that the property’s classification as residential excess acreage is in error.
