Environmentalists are backing a big tax break for Florida's largest land owners.
Amendment Four would reduce or eliminate property taxes for owners who protect their land from bulldozers. Environmental groups embrace the proposal as a way to expand preservation in a state with a dwindling budget to buy prime parcels.
Proponents believe it could prove especially helpful in places like South Miami-Dade, where suburban sprawl drives up land values — and pressure to subdivide — on remaining rural lands. The pitch is that owners now spending money to run small farms or nurseries mainly to claim agriculture tax breaks could profit by letting land revert to wetland.
Read the full story at miamiherald.com.