79-A:2 Definitions. –
In this chapter:
I. "Assessing official" means the assessing authority of any town, city or place.
II. "Board" means the current use board established by RSA 79-A:3.
III. "Board of tax and land appeals" means the board of tax and land appeals established pursuant to the provisions of RSA 71-B:1.
IV. "Commissioner" means the commissioner of the department of revenue administration.
V. "Current use value" means the assessed valuation per acre of open space land based upon the income-producing capability of the land in its current use solely for growing forest or agricultural crops, and not its real estate market value. This valuation shall be determined by the assessor in accordance with the range of current use values established by the board and in accordance with the class, type, grade and location of land.
VI. "Farm land" means any cleared land devoted to or capable of agricultural or horticultural use as determined and classified by criteria developed by the commissioner of agriculture, markets, and food and adopted by the board.
VII. "Forest land" means any land growing trees as determined and classified by criteria developed by the state forester and adopted by the board. For the purposes of this paragraph, the board shall recognize the cost of responsible land stewardship in the determination of assessment ranges.
VIII. "Land use change tax" means a tax that shall be levied when the land use changes from open space use to a non-qualifying use.
IX. "Open space land" means any or all farm land, forest land, or unproductive land as defined by this section. However, "open space land" shall not include any property held by a city, town or district in another city or town for the purpose of a water supply or flood control, for which a payment in place of taxes is made in accordance with RSA 72:11.
X. "Owner" means the person who is the owner of record of any land.
XI. "Person" means any individual, firm, corporation, partnership or other form of organization or group of individuals.
XII. "Soil potential index" means the production capability of land as determined by the United States Natural Resources Conservation Service.
XIII. "Unproductive land" means land, including wetlands, which by its nature is incapable of producing agricultural or forest products due to poor soil or site characteristics, or the location of which renders it inaccessible or impractical to harvest agricultural or forest products, as determined and classified by criteria developed by the board. The board shall develop only one category for all unproductive land, setting its current use value not to exceed that of the lowest current use value established by the board for any other category.
XIV. "Wetlands" means those areas of farm, forest and unproductive land that are inundated or saturated by surface water or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.