i am going to transition my ranch land from ag exemption to wildlife exemption for 2015. There are several service providers that will craft a 5 year mgmt plan for submittal to the tax districts for a fee (+/- $2/$3 per acre for 800 acre ranch). Does anyone have any experience or recommendations on this process? Thanks!

In Williamson County?

Do it yourself. I did same swith 3+ yrs ago. Very easy, takes about 1-2 hrs a year. then each following yr build off prior plan!



Stan J. Bludau
Bludau@commscope.com

We have worked with Landmark and they've been great.

Some CADs are very, very difficult to work with and strongly oppose wildlife management. Ours would be one of them. Paying someone to do it is well worth it in our situation.

Keep in mind, you can technically write the plan yourself. That way you can dictate that the practices will be within you budget.

I can tell you my process when I get asked to do one of these.
*Figure out where you property is. If you have a nice, modern CAD, I've probably eyeballed it before we get off the phone.--call it 5-20 minutes. I'll usually try to set up a site visit within a week (some times 2)
*I'll probably spend about 3-4 minutes playing in Google Earth's most recent imagery.
*Then I'll spend about 3 minutes eyeballing your property in the the NRCS WebSoil Survey.
*From that, I'll pull a generic historic plants list/base line to play with and your soils maps
--So, at this point, I've spent a grand total of about 15-20 minutes on the matter.
*We do a site visit to ground truth my 20 minutes of playing on a computer.---depending on the vegetation types, I'm usually looking for specific plant species....generally I have 5 trees, 5 shrubs, and 5 grasses (specific to that properties ecoregion and specific location)I'll be looking for. I like things that are umbrella species, and generally really easy to spot---If we don't spot them, well, it's an easy base for the plan--We MIGHT spend 45 min-2 hours on the tour of the property.
*Then we have a tailgate (or preferably ice tea and food) meeting. With pretty maps (which hopefully you have) and the downloaded documents we walk/talk our way through the 7 broad practices, and choose 3 to YOUR liking.--Maybe 15-30 minutes
*At this point, it's up to you to fill in the documents. If it is picky county and wants a biologist's signature, you email it to me and you get an electronic signature on it.

*Really nice landowners bring a laptop to the tailgate meeting with the fillable documents filled in, minus the actual management plan. Sitting there, we can literally fill in the rest in 15-20 minutes and you are ready to submit.

Some of the TPWD biologists have a lot more time constraints. They may forgo doing a site visit, have you come into the "office", and fill in and sign right there. Talking about maybe an hour. Most of us have our favorite practices we turn to, and can write these plans pretty much in our sleep.

If you want to go through a private contractor, by all means do so. But if you want to do it yourself, you have every right to do so. If you want to write it yourself, then simply consult with a TPWD biologist (and/or get a signature) about whether or not it is effective or doable, we LOVE those types of consultations.

If you're in Williamson County, you may also be interested in looking into the Williamson County Regional Habitat Conservation Plan.

Plateau Land and Wildlife Management

www.plateauwildlife.com

Ask for David Braun

By far the best in the business...

Thanks for the responses. My ranch is in Burnet County.

[This message has been edited by RMC91 (edited 7/1/2014 9:31a).]

My tax assessor in Waller county is very easy to work with. I the plan together myself and when I couldn't get my food plot to work out she suggested a couple of other things that were even easier.

It's just a pet peave of mine, but we need to quit calling it an Ag Exemption or Wildlife Exemption. They are valuations. You aren't exempted from paying any taxes. You just pay less based on the valuation. You don't want the urban folks thinking you are exempted from paying taxes.

Agreed, I always use valuation.

Avoid Plateau Land Management!!!
Very expensive and have little practical experience.

fayette, what do you mean by no practical experience?

From what I understand, where they are particularly helpful is Braun's legal background in more stubborn counties.

The actual management plan part is easy. Biggest thing I usually have to work on is getting realistic management objectives with smallers properties.

I filed my own wildlife valuation plan last spring and it was approved. The CAD sent me a letter a few months later saying it was approved on error due to my property not meeting minimum size requirements. So, they rescinded wildlife and I am back on Ag valuation.

I'm continuing practices under the plan regardless, having designed and built nest box stands on 8' treated 4x4s. Having checked them this past weekend, the birds seem to appreciate them. Even had a bat sleeping in one during the day.

Do you still have cows or cut hay? If you do the 1-d-1special ag use appraisal is revenue neutral between ag and wildlife so there is no benefit to go to wildlife.

As far as the plan goes it's super simple. There is a PDF on TPWD website and just fill in the blanks. I use to help people out with this stuff and it was really dumb for people to pay for me to sit across a table ask a question and then me fill in the blank.

If you do want to go wildlife the best thing to do is sit down with the cheif appriser of your county. Do it sometime in August or September because they will be super busy until July 25th. Get a feel on how through that county is. Some counties are lax as hell and some are hard asses. Some counties require a 3 or 5 yr plan and then a yearly report. I think the tax code recently changed regarding that.


Once again if you still plan on keeping cows or cutting hay there is no bnefit of switching.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/private/agricultural_land/

This should have EVERYTHING you need to do it yourself

I guess you might need a consultant if you don't plan on doing the work yourself ie: your 7 practices

But if you can fill feeders, plant food plots, make census counts, control brush, and trap predators you don't need any outside help

San Antone


If you really want wildlife since ag and wildlife are revenue neutral the cad should give it to you. But since you got cows there is no need.

Personal beef on keeping cows for Ag, especially in more hard a-- counties, is they tend to require stocking rates that promote overgrazing.

Some counties like to add things beyond the state requirements, some times they have to be reminded that they can't.

Side note---I never recommend feeders. Use them of you want, but I'm not sticking it in there for supplemental food.

quote:

---

I filed my own wildlife valuation plan last spring and it was approved. The CAD sent me a letter a few months later saying it was approved on error due to my property not meeting minimum size requirements. So, they rescinded wildlife and I am back on Ag valuation.

---

There is NO minimum acreage requirement if the land was not reduced in size compared to January 1 of the previous tax year. Counties either don't understand the law or are intentionally misapplying it (again, some counties are strongly opposed to wildlife management). Texas
Administrative Code, Title 34, Part 1, Chapter 9, Subchapter G, Rule 9.2005 Part B states:

quote:

---

(b) If the number of acres in the tract of land is equal to or greater than the number of acres in the
tract of land on January 1 of the preceding tax year, the tract of land is not subject to the wildlife
use requirement

---

The wildlife use requirement is the predetermined minimum acreage.

Ursus

I never recommend feeding straight corn. We use a 70/30 mix of corn and roasted soybean and for every 300lb feeder we also put 50 lbs milo.

To qualify for special use 1-d-1 appraisal your property has to be involved in an ag endeavor for 5-7 years. Once you get ag you can roll into wildlife and your wildlife production value by law will remain at whatever ag category you were in before apply for wildlife as to remain revenue neutral

Well, yes, but the person I quoted stated they were and are currently in ag.

That's cool.

I'll tell landowners they have the option to use feeders, but that is their decision but I'm not putting it in their. From my side, I'm getting as much habitat work as possible.

For those that might be interested, there will be a fairly large workshop on this matter up in McKinney on August 23. I'm one of the speakers on the wildlife tax valuation. This year we have an emphasis on grassland restoration, hunting challenges and opportunities in suburban counties (legal stuff), and a realistic feral hog biology/management.

Oh, and I'll have representatives from two different CADs there that can give some guidance on working with CADs.

[This message has been edited by ursusguy (edited 6/25/2014 7:44a).]

While I know that there are no minimum acreage requirements to convert Ag to Wildlife (save for purchase date and/or reduction in size), my CAD does not recognize this.

My intent for converting is so that I do not have to rely on my property being covered (or not covered) through Ag as it is part of a subdivision under a cattle lease. In the future, if our POA can't secure a cattle lease for whatever reason, I don't want to be stuck paying full taxes. Hence my desire to go Wildlife.

The appraiser has "let" us file a Wildlife plan jointly with an adjoining property owner so that collectively the two properties will total more than 50 acres, her prescribed minimum.

While her "allowing" us to do this sounded fine and good, she threw another roadblock. The combined Wildlife plan would have to include details on how we would restrict cattle access onto the two properties to prevent overgrazing. Translation: we would have to erect a perimeter fence. Which would cost close to what both properties are worth (paying for labor and materials, 70 acres).

When she required fencing, I gave up on Wildlife.

You're a better person than me. I'd be chomping at the bit to shove that blatant and likely intentional misapplication of state law right up their rears. I do not take kindly to those in power bullying the citizens that fund their paychecks. Sounds like you are exactly the kind of person that could use the assistance of one of these consultants.

Not to mention, I'm no wildlife expert but it seems to me that with all the fragmentation in more urban areas it's actually more important for small landowners to step up and promote wildlife rather than overgraze their land.That is, of course, only if you consider the intent of these valuations being made available in the first place and not just the fact that it's more work for CADs than a simple ag valuation. Obviously certain CADs only care about the latter.

I spoke to an individual who put an ad in the county seat's newspaper, essentially rallying property owners who have had issues with the CAD and their respective attempts to convert to Wildlife to band together and file a lawsuit against the CAD.

His issue, briefly: WV plan approved. WV report filed at end of year. WV dropped by CAD. Property owner schedules and attends an appeal to protest WV being dropped. CAD reinstates WV.

The landowner experienced the above string of events for six straight years.

While the mass lawsuit didn't happen, he did collect dozens of signatures from property owners who experienced issues with the CAD and their WVs. The petition was submitted for the removal of the chief appraisal.

Let's just say that every name on the petition received extra special treatment in relation to their WVs. The CAD came down hard on these property owners.

The TPWD regional biologist has talked to the CAD...several of us have talked to the TPWD director who oversees private land management. All they can do is attempt to educate and recommend. In this instance, to deaf ears.

I can tell you, I know the CAD in one of the San Antonio area counties literally made not so subtle threats towards the TPWD rep that was trying to educate them on the matter. Tough situation, and as yall have alluded, generally only gets resolved when pushed legally.

Flip side, Dallas County loves them because there is a written plan, and pretty straight forward whether the practices were put in place or not. Granted, for a couple years, their Ag tax person had retired from being an extension agent for 20 plus years. He was pretty annoyed at the level of corruption issues under standard Ag (ie--he could actually id the plants involved).

While I am a very small landowner with no exemptions, I have learned a lot from this discussion. Thanks to all of you for your comments.

All of this information has been very helpful. I am going to look at the alternative of doing it myself. I have ag valuation for 2014 since I have been running cows so I have time to prepare information for 2015.

Does anyone have experience with Burnet County. Is the appraisal district reasonable?

Thanks!

I wrote my own plan in Medina County. The plan consists of a lot of facts and maps you can get off the internet. Then you make all these silly promises about what you are gonna to do for food water and habitat upgrades. Shoot the hogs and encourage proliferation of horney toads. Try to get a go by that someone else has done and just mostly copy it. It will save you a bunch of time. Don't pay someone to do it for you

[This message has been edited by Agneck (edited 6/27/2014 8:41a).]

Which you are supposed to take photos of or keep receipts for said improvements.