Amendment 1: conservation use acreage, 2,000 to 4,000 acres

What a vote means

A yes vote

One owner may have up to 4,000 acres of farm or timber land assessed at conservation use value instead of 2,000.

The state's own words: A yes vote would increase the maximum amount of land that a single owner can enroll in Georgia's Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) program—from 2,000 to 4,000 acres.

A no vote

The cap stays at 2,000 acres per owner.

The state's own words: Current law stays as it is now.

In full

Georgia taxes farm and timber land under a preferential formula rather than at market value, if the owner signs a covenant to keep the land in that use. The constitution caps how much land one owner can put under that treatment at 2,000 acres. This amendment doubles the cap to 4,000 acres ^[1]. Nothing else in the scheme changes. The covenant requirement stays, and so does the penalty: “A breach of such covenant within ten years shall result in a recapture of the tax savings resulting from such methods of assessment and taxation and may result in other appropriate penalties” ^[1]. The separate five-acre cap on “bona fide residential transitional property” stays too ^[1]. The question's own framing — “for the purpose of protecting family farmland” — is in the constitutional text itself, not just the ballot summary: the General Assembly wrote that phrase into the ballot wording the resolution prescribes ^[1]. The official summary is plainer: “This proposal increases the maximum acreage to qualify for assessment and taxation as a bona fide conservation use property from 2,000 acres to 4,000 acres” ^[1].

On the ballot

The question as it is printed, word for word.

Amendment 1. Short caption: “Increases the maximum qualifying acreage for assessment and taxation as bona fide conservation use property.” Question: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia, for the purpose of protecting family farmland, be amended so as to increase the maximum acreage to qualify for assessment and taxation as a bona fide conservation use property from 2,000 acres to 4,000 acres?” [1][2]

What it would change

• Amends Article VII, Section I, Paragraph III of the Georgia Constitution “by revising subparagraph (e)(1)” — the taxation article's uniformity and classification paragraph ^[1]
• One number changes. The definition of “bona fide conservation use property” would “include bona fide agricultural and timber land not to exceed 4,000 acres of a single owner”, where the present text reads 2,000 ^[1]
• The valuation formula is untouched: methods of assessment and taxation “include a formula based on current use, annual productivity, and real property sales data” ^[1]
• The covenant condition is untouched: “A property owner desiring the benefit of such methods of assessment and taxation shall be required to enter into a covenant to continue the property in bona fide conservation use or bona fide residential transitional use” ^[1]
• The recapture penalty is untouched: a breach “within ten years shall result in a recapture of the tax savings resulting from such methods of assessment and taxation and may result in other appropriate penalties” ^[1]
• The separate category for suburban-fringe homes is untouched: “bona fide residential transitional property” still means private single-family owner-occupied property in transitional developing areas, “not to exceed five acres of any single owner” ^[1]
• The cap is per owner, not per parcel — the text says “of a single owner” — so the change is about how much land one owner may shelter, not about which land qualifies ^[1]
• The General Assembly still sets the detail: the paragraph opens “The General Assembly shall provide by general law” ^[1]
• The official summary names the article and the exact edit: it “amends Article VII, Section I, Paragraph III of the Georgia Constitution, relating to uniformity, classification of property, assessment of agricultural land, and utilities, by revising subparagraph (e)(1)” ^[1]

When it would start

• No effective-date clause appears in the resolution. Its second section deals only with publication and submission: “The above proposed amendment to the Constitution shall be published and submitted as provided in Article X, Section I, Paragraph II of the Constitution” ^[1]
• On ratification it becomes constitutional text: “If such amendment shall be ratified as provided in said Paragraph of the Constitution, it shall become a part of the Constitution of this state” ^[1]
• Which tax year a doubled cap would first reach is not stated in the resolution or the official summary, and the General Assembly still has to provide the detail by general law ^[1]

If it passes

• The constitutional cap on bona fide conservation use property rises from 2,000 to 4,000 acres per owner, with the covenant requirement, the ten-year recapture penalty and the separate five-acre residential transitional category all unchanged ^[1]

If it fails

• The cap stays at 2,000 acres of a single owner, and the rest of the conservation use scheme continues as it is ^[1]

What it would cost

• No fiscal note was read for this research: Georgia's legislative site could not be reached (see what we could not find) ^[1]
• Georgia prints no fiscal estimate on the ballot, and the official summary prepared by the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and Legislative Counsel carries no figure ^[1][2]
• The direction of the effect is not in doubt even without a figure: conservation use valuation is lower than market valuation, so doubling how much land one owner may place under it reduces the taxable digest. Property tax in Georgia funds counties, cities and school districts rather than the state ^[1]
• No estimate of how many owners hold more than 2,000 acres, of how much acreage would newly qualify, or of the revenue effect on any county or school district was found in any source read here

How it got on the ballot

• A legislative referral, by House Resolution No. 32, published at Ga. L. 2025, p. 1081 — the 2025 session, a year before the other two amendments on this ballot ^[1][2]
• The resolution's own title states its scope: “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution so as to increase the maximum acreage to qualify for assessment and taxation as a bona fide conservation use property; to provide for related matters; to provide for the submission of this amendment for ratification or rejection; and for other purposes” ^[1]
• It was adopted in the form every Georgia amendment takes: “BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA” ^[1]
• The General Assembly wrote the ballot question itself into the resolution, including the clause “for the purpose of protecting family farmland” ^[1]
• No sponsor, committee history or roll call was located: the Georgia General Assembly's legislation service could not be read in this pass (see what we could not find)
• Georgia publishes proposed amendments in an unusual way, and the booklet describes it: “As required by the Constitution, these proposed amendments in their entirety are on file in the office of the judge of the probate court in each county and are available for public inspection” ^[1]
• The summaries are official and jointly authored: “prepared by Attorney General Christopher Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Legislative Counsel Betsy Howerton and published in the newspaper which is each county's official legal organ” ^[1]
• The short caption that appears above each question on the ballot is not the sponsors' wording either: the captions are “those adopted by the Constitutional Amendments Publication Board” ^[1]

What came before

• Conservation use valuation is long-standing Georgia policy, and the constitutional text shows its shape: a covenant, a ten-year recapture period, and a per-owner acreage cap ^[1]
• The 2,000-acre cap being doubled is itself a constitutional number rather than a statutory one, which is why changing it needs a vote of the people ^[1]
• This is one of three amendments on Georgia's 2026 ballot, and the only one carried over from the 2025 session ^[1][2]
• Georgia's constitution also requires the amendments to be printed in full in a county-level booklet and filed with each county's probate judge, which is how this text was read ^[1]

Who is paying for the campaign

Totals reported by committees formed for this measure. They are not the final figures, and a committee that campaigns on more than one measure is counted on each.

Georgia committees supporting or opposing a ballot question report to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. No filing was read for this research, so no committee is named and no total is given — that means no figure was read, not that no money is being spent. See what we could not find.

What each side says

Other people's words and claims, not ours, each with the page it came from. Where we found no organised campaign on a side, the page says so rather than inventing one.

Questions worth asking

• The ballot says the purpose is “protecting family farmland”. A 2,000-acre owner is already protected; the change helps owners above that line. Who are they, and how many are there?
• Conservation use valuation shifts tax off the covenanted land. Who picks up the difference — other property owners in the same county, or the school district's budget?
• Timber land is in the same definition as agricultural land. Does doubling the cap mainly benefit farms, or timber holdings?
• The covenant runs with a ten-year recapture penalty. Is ten years long enough to be a real commitment on 4,000 acres?
• No fiscal estimate accompanies this amendment. What would it cost a rural county, and did anyone in the General Assembly ask?
• The cap is per owner. Could land be divided among related owners or entities to multiply the benefit, and does the amendment address that?
• When would a doubled cap first apply, and does the General Assembly have to legislate before it does?
• Who is campaigning for or against? Georgia's committee filings were not read for this research.

What we could not find

• The Georgia Secretary of State's website returned a bot-protection refusal (HTTP 403) on every attempt in this pass, and the Georgia General Assembly's legislation API requires a signed key that its own web application computes. Neither block was worked around. So the resolution's sponsors, its committee history, its roll calls in the House and Senate, and any fiscal note are not reported here.
• Article X, Section I, Paragraph II of the Georgia Constitution — the paragraph the resolution points to for how an amendment is submitted and ratified — was not read, so the majority or supermajority required to ratify, and the legislative threshold the resolution had to clear, are not stated above.
• No campaign finance filing was read, so no committee is named and no total is given, for or against.
• Georgia publishes no argument for or against a proposed amendment: the official material is the resolution's text and the joint summary by the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and Legislative Counsel, all of which is descriptive. So neither side's case can be printed from an official source.
• The official material was read from a county election office's published booklet and sample ballot rather than from the Secretary of State directly, because of the refusal above. The booklet states that the amendments in their entirety are on file with each county's probate judge for public inspection.
• No fiscal note or revenue estimate for House Resolution 32 was found, so nothing above quantifies the effect on county, city or school district tax digests.
• No count of Georgia landowners holding more than 2,000 acres under conservation use covenants, or of the acreage that would newly qualify, was found.
• The Georgia statutes implementing conservation use valuation were not read, so how the constitutional cap interacts with the statutory scheme is not established.
• Which tax year a ratified amendment would first affect was not established.
• House Resolution 32 passed in the 2025 session, a year before the other two amendments; why it waited for the 2026 ballot was not established.

Sources