Agricultural land reform cannot be reversed; we urge County Magistrate Chen to let Yilan forge its own path of glory

Text / Chen Bi-yuan (a native of Yilan, director of Gaoyuan Real Estate Appraisers Joint Firm)

Since Chen Chin-te took over as acting magistrate of Yilan County on November 6 of this year (2017), he has, as expected, changed course, carrying out a wholesale overturning and drastic loosening of the agricultural policy of Magistrate Lin Tsung-hsien's era. This can be described as absorbing the backlash of local party faction forces. Despite his grand ambitions, he has also needlessly stirred up a pool of spring water.

Speculative housing on the Lanyang Plain: farmhouses not used for farming are instead assessed the land value tax, at a rate of more than 70 percent

Since Chen Ding-nan served as magistrate of Yilan County, for the sake of Yilan's future as a mainly agricultural county, the main axes of governance were established as building the county on environmental protection and building the county on tourism, learning from the Swiss approach, so that the Lanyang Plain could stand out with a freshness unlike the browning of generally urbanized land. Afterward, whether it was Yu Shyi-kun's building the county on culture or Liu Shou-cheng's building the county on information, both, under the framework laid down by Chen Ding-nan, attempted to let Yilan County continue to maintain the rural and urban appearance most characterized by pastoral scenery in Taiwan, China, leaving future generations a piece of land free from pollution.

However, in fact, since the 2000 amendment of the Agricultural Development Act changed the policy from farmland owned by farmers to farmland used for farming, and non-farmers were allowed to acquire farmland, the problem of farmland not actually being used for farming has been endless. In particular, after farmland was allowed to have farmhouses built on it, and after farmhouses in remote areas were allowed to serve as homestays, the grain production function and ecological function of farmland were continuously eroded, gradually transforming into the life and leisure function of luxury farmhouses and homestays, and endangering the ecological functions of the agricultural landscape and land conservation.

Although the value of farmland gradually shifted from the low price nature of early production land to the high price nature of consumption land, amid the competition and cooperation of the "three lives" multifunctional agriculture policy, conflicting problems emerged, causing dissatisfaction among those who emphasize producers and landscape conservationists.

This phenomenon, after Lin Tsung-hsien was elected and took office as Yilan County magistrate in 2009, faced the rapid increase year by year in farmhouse construction after the opening of the Xueshan Tunnel. For example, before the amendment of the Agricultural Development Act, there were 1,754 farmhouses; after the amendment until the end of 2014, newly issued use licenses for farmhouses reached 7,612, most of which were not used for agricultural operations, and as many as 5,600 were reassessed the land value tax because of actual illegal use, at a rate of more than 70 percent.

Lin Tsung-hsien's reforms during his tenure curbed farmhouse construction, but were forced to end due to local backlash

Therefore, during Lin Tsung-hsien's first term, he began deliberating related farmland-use-for-farming policies to slow the graying of farmland and policies to restrict farmhouse construction, and from the end of 2014 in the second term began to finalize and gradually implement them.

The related policies included: 1. Enacting the "Yilan County Farmhouse Construction Applicant Qualification and Farmhouse Building Review Measures" to conduct substantive review of whether the builder truly engages in agricultural operations, and stipulating that the overall configuration of farmhouse land within agricultural land should be a rectangular block, with one side facing a road and one side facing a boundary line, to reduce the possibility of other farmhouse land being grayed out; 2. Amending the pricing method for the house assessment standard unit price and re-designating the announced land value, and regarding tax regulations for illegal use of farmland or for substantive use, increasing the house tax on illegal farmhouses and increasing the tax burden of the land value tax on agricultural land not used for agriculture; 3. Abolishing the regulation that farmhouses in Yilan County may serve as homestays, in order to maintain an environment of sustainable agricultural operation.

After this policy was implemented, it indeed effectively curbed applications for farmhouse construction, dropping from an average of more than 700 per year to more than 100, among which the "Yilan County Farmhouse Construction Applicant Qualification and Farmhouse Building Review Measures" was accepted by the Council of Agriculture and amended into the "Farmland Farmhouse Construction Measures," and thus abolished. For the implementation of the remaining policies, especially increasing the tax burden on violators, after the public received tax bills in 2016, the force of backlash began to ferment, especially as the council and local party factions also pressured Lin Tsung-hsien into discouragement, forcing him to leave Yilan and transfer to the central government.

Through the "land value tax" measure, Lin made "farmland not used for farming" subject to a large tax increase

The House Tax Act stipulates: "The house tax shall be levied on all kinds of houses attached to the land, and on buildings related to increasing the use value of such houses." The house tax is levied according to the current value of the house and the relevant tax rates. The current value of the house is determined first by the real estate appraisal committee assessing the standard price standard for houses, and after announcement by the municipality, county (city) government, the tax collection authority shall, on that basis, calculate the current value of the house.

As for the house tax portion at the time, Lin Tsung-hsien used the opportunity that the Yilan County Real Estate Appraisal Committee should re-assess the standard unit price of houses every three years. On June 12, 201