The people at the Mobile County tax assessor’s office call it “Springville Mall Memorial Forest.”

   Nestled among shopping centers and hotels at Interstate 65 and Airport Boulevard, this vacant 100-plus acres is often cited by critics of Alabama’s anti-tax constitution as one of the more egregious abuses of current use law.

   Current use was added to the state constitution in 1978. The law says land classified as agricultural or for timber will be assessed at its current use rather than its market value.

   Supporters such as ALFA say current use is necessary to protect farm land from escalating property values brought on by urbanization. But constitution and tax reformers say the law is often abused and cheats public coffers out of tens of millions of dollars that are needed for schools, public health and other services.

   Here is the story of the “Memorial Forest:”

   In the mid-1980s, a family named Delaney applied for and was granted current use valuation on 104 acres it owned behind Springville Plaza and Bell Air Mall. In 1989, the former tax assessor complained that there were no trees on the land. The landowners, using a cost-share grant from the state Department of Conservation planted trees - twice. The trees died both times.

   In 1991, Mobile County Revenue Commissioner Freda Roberts removed the land from current use. She said the land was not being used for timber growth and sales.

   The change increased the taxes on the land from $157 a year to $135,000 a year.

   The landowners sued and got a circuit court judge to issue a summary judgment against the revenue commissioner’s office, Mobile County and the state.

   The county appealed and the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled that Roberts had the right to remove the land from current use. But the appellate court also said the county would have to show proof it had made the right decision in taxing the land at commercial rates. In June 1998 the case went to trial in Mobile County.

   “A jury found we were correct: That property was not being used for the growth and sale of timber,” Roberts said.

   The landowners then appealed the trial verdict to the Civil Court of Appeals, which upheld the county, and now the case is before the state Supreme Court.

   The landowners have tried again to plant trees since the lawsuit, but the trees died, Roberts said.

   Since that time, she said, some of the land has been sold for a Lowe’s home improvement store and a Marriott hotel.

   The land continues to be taxed at a commercial rate, but if the Supreme Court reverses the revenue commissioner’s ruling, county taxpayers will owe the landowners more than $1 million in overpaid taxes and interest.

   “It’s really an important lawsuit for the whole state,” Roberts said.

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Reprinted with Permission from TheHuntsville Times.