Lincoln Chafee: “a serious environmental problem facing the country today is the loss of open space to development. All across the…”

“a serious environmental problem facing the country today is the loss of open space to development. All across the country, farms, ranches, forests, and wetlands are forced to give way to the pressures for new office buildings, shopping malls, and housing developments. America is losing over 4 square miles of land to development every day. In Rhode Island, over 11,000 acres of farmland have been lost to development since 1974. In many instances, this is simply the natural outgrowth of urbanization of our society. Other times it is the direct result of improper planning at the State and local levels. But frequently, the pressure comes from the need to raise funds to pay estate taxes. For those families where undeveloped land represents a significant portion of the estate's total value, the need to pay the tax creates powerful pressure to develop or sell off part or all of the land or to liquidate the timber resources of the land. Because land is appraised by the Internal Revenue Service according to its highest and best use, and such use is often its development value, the effect of the tax is to make retention of undeveloped land difficult.”