No appeal in alfalfa case

Friday, February 18, 2011

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Ruling that alfalfa pelleting is clearly “processing” under the Assessment Act, not farming, a Superior Court Justice has refused a Waterloo Region farmer leave to appeal the classification of her rural property to the Divisional Court.

Justice J. F. McGarry’s decided against Lorentz Farms Limited, Wellesley Township, Waterloo Region, on Feb. 15. According to the decision, Lynda Lorentz was appealing a November, 2009 Assessment Review Board ruling that agreed with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation classification of a 2.66 acre property where alfalfa is dried and pelletized. The MPAC had classified the property as industrial and commercial.

A farm, rather than industrial classification of a property results in a substantially lower tax bill ever year. Lynda Lorentz was not prepared to comment until she had read the decision. She told Better Farming she was not aware that a decision had been published.

She says Lorentz Farms appealed the MPAC classification “more for our son and the next generation and everyone else.”

“My father-in-law started farming here in the 1950s. We’ve been doing the same process all those years,” she says.

Justice McGarry’s decision said: “In my view, it is clear based upon the agreed facts, that “processing” took place as the treatment of alfalfa by grinding into a powder and producing pellets amounts to “processing”. BF