Shrewsbury Township Conservation Fund

what is the clean and green program?

Clean and Green
Clean and Green is intended to preserve agricultural and forest land by offering landowners reduced property taxes for keeping their land in agriculture use, agriculture reserve or forest reserve.  A recent amendment to Clean and Green broadened the preferential assessment to include the property’s residential structures, thereby providing a tax break to “mini estates,” a break that comes at the expense of other property taxpayers.  CCAP supports preferential assessment, including where the homestead is located, in active agriculture use areas, but argues that the homestead on land in agriculture reserve or forest reserve should be excluded.  

Pennsylvania Act 319 (Clean and Green Act) is a voluntary program available to landowners. To enroll in this program, it generally requires a minimum of 10 acres of land that will remain in one of the following designated uses: productive agriculture, agricultural reserve, or forest reserve. This act was implemented to protect and preserve farmland and forest land by taxing the land according to its use rather than its market value. The County Assessment Office keeps records on land enrolled in this program.