I appreciate your recent articles by Paul Boring concerning the plans of the Island County commissioners to downzone land near the air station because it is in the “aircraft accident potential zone.” This obviously has those property owners upset because of the potential loss to their land value.

What is amazing is that the commissioners want to compensate those property owners by classifying their land as open space under the Public Benefit Rating System. PBRS is a state program which allows counties to provide property tax reductions to property owners who elect to protect and preserve lands which provide “significant recreational, social, scenic, or esthetic values” (RCW 84.34.200). Protecting such land provides a public benefit enjoyed by everyone in the county, and in return the tax burden of that protected land is shifted from the property owner to everyone else in the county.

Surveys of Island County residents have shown they want to preserve our beautiful natural environment, to protect woodlands, wetlands, scenic byways and animal habitat. Property owners with those features may choose to be in the PBRS system and receive tax breaks for protecting those features. That’s not what is happening here. These are not properties providing a public benefit.

The commissioners obviously have the option to revise zoning around the air base due to increased danger. That’s a zoning decision. They obviously felt that need with the Boyer property and purchased the land. They also have the option of purchasing the development rights to the property in question. To my knowledge the county has previously downzoned areas without any compensation to the property owners when rezoning under the comprehensive land use plan. I know other counties have done that to minimize growth in rural areas.

One has to ask where this type of proposed reclassification leads. Certainly many developed properties around the Outlying Field in Coupeville fall in the aircraft accident zone. I’m sure increasing numbers of properties around the Oak Harbor airport are at risk as more commercial aircraft fly there. How will all these property owners be compensated? While the commissioners may be trying to appease certain property owners at risk near the air station, it is inappropriate to be cherry-picking who will receive a benefit and who will not, and more importantly, it is totally inappropriate to use the Public Benefit Rating System to shift taxes onto me for this purpose.

John Kohlmann

Coupeville