Editorial: Green tax

Since its inception, the green tax has put nearly 12,000 acres under county stewardship. Another $25 million is earmarked to help buy the Babcock Ranch, about $33 million is available to buy more property and $21 million or so has been set aside for land management.

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The newly announced huge increases in Lee County's tax base are leading to predictable calls for accompanying decreases in the tax rates levied by local governments. Most of those calls should be heeded, but one local tax needs to be exempt from the chopping block — Lee County's "green tax."

The tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of property value has raised almost $160 million for the county's Conservation 2020 land-buying program since voters approved it a decade ago. The program does what its names implies, buying environmentally important land for preservation and, to a lesser extent, recreation.

Since its inception, the green tax has put nearly 12,000 acres under county stewardship. Another $25 million is earmarked to help buy the Babcock Ranch, about $33 million is available to buy more property and $21 million or so has been set aside for land management.

No one likes taxes, but this one is — hold onto your hat here — actually politically popular. Environmentalists like it for the obvious reasons, but property-rights advocates do, too, because of the program's willing-seller clause.

Don't want to sell your land to the program? Then don't; no one can make you.

Even developers like the program because, well, because they're not stupid. Why do people flood into Lee County by the thousands every year, snapping up homes and condos in the process? Because it's a nice place to live, it's got eagles and manatees and the occasional panther and it's not wall-to-wall concrete.

Make no mistake, ambiance sells, and no other effort in Southwest Florida has done more than the Conservation 2020 program to prevent Lee County from turning into Broward County.

Into all that comes the latest property value estimates. In the last fiscal year, the county's taxable value grew a staggering 37.8 percent, to nearly $89 billion. That's great news for local governments, which can trim the tax rates ("We're holding the line on taxes!") but still bring in more tax money than last year (No, you're not).

County Administrator Don Stilwell has called for lowering the rate in all the half dozen or so property taxes the county collects. One of those is the green tax.

The reasons not to do that are myriad. Setting aside land for preservation takes the land off the tax rolls but increases property values throughout the county. And in addition to the environmental benefits, preserved land helps recharge aquifers, prevents urban sprawl and buffers sensitive areas like Estero Bay that, if damaged, can cost millions to repair.

Perhaps the biggest reason not to lower the green tax, though, is it doesn't make fiscal sense. The tax base increase mirrors rising land values. Does anyone really think that waiting to buy land now because the tax rate was lowered means the land will still be around for the same price the next year? Hamstringing the Conservation 2020 program with a lower tax rate will cost taxpayers more in the long run, not less.

Lowering the tax rate isn't a done deal. The county attorney's office is researching whether it's even legal to lower a voter-approved tax, and county commissioners would have to give the OK.

They shouldn't. This is one tax that's worth the money.