This case involves six tracts of land owned by three different legal entities: Oakhill Land Company, which owns three tracts; Quivira Village, LLC, which owns two tracts; and Quivira Village North, LLC, which owns one tract. Dale Barnhart is a principal owner of all three companies. When Barnhart bought the tracts, they were zoned for agricultural use and were being used for agricultural purposes. Barnhart has sought unsuccessfully to get the properties rezoned to residential use. Maintaining the agricultural-use classification of these properties means they have a much lower property-tax rate. The 2006 appraised values concern only four of the six tracts. D classified three of them as agricultural, and it mailed notices to the property owners with that classification and a corresponding valuation for property-tax purposes. The county's initial appraisal for a fourth tract classified it as vacant. After additional inspection and a reevaluation of the properties in June, D changed the classifications of the first three tracts to vacant. This caused a substantial increase in each tract's valuation for property-tax purposes. D didn't send the taxpayers notice of these changes until August 29, 2006. Ps challenged the reclassifications for 2006 and 2007. The appeals from both tax years were ultimately heard by the Court of Tax Appeals in a single, consolidated hearing. Barnhart testified that he bought the properties in 2002 or 2003 with the long-term goal of turning them into a residential development. He has been unable to obtain residential zoning. Barnhart presented a lease entered into in 2003 with farmer Don Marrs under which Marrs agreed 'to harvest the saleable timber' on the properties. There were walnut trees on the properties that would be worth up to $20,000 in total when fully grown. Barnhart e had made no money on the properties in 2006 but claimed to have paid taxes on $511 received in cash from agricultural use of parcel 929902 in 2007. He did not present any documents showing that. Nor did he present any documents showing a plan to remove walnut trees or other timber from the properties. Barnhart resides in Florida, and he had no firsthand knowledge of whether the land was actually put to agricultural use, relying instead on Marrs to take whatever actions were needed to remove timber from the land. Marrs did not testify. Two witnesses testified for the county: Ralph Bellamy and Roy Wheat, both appraisers working for the county. Bellamy testified that landowners who grew trees on their property usually had a plan that set out expected time frames for harvesting the product and that tree farms usually had rows of trees planted for harvesting on a schedule. He said that the lack of these indications of the agricultural production of timber was a factor considered when the county changed the classification of some tracts from agricultural to vacant. On visual inspection, Wheat found no evidence of agricultural use. He also looked at aerial photographs taken 5 years earlier to determine whether there was evidence that trees had been harvested; he found more tree growth in recent years than in the past, with no evidence of harvesting. So, Wheat changed the classifications for the three tracts from agricultural to vacant. The Court of Tax Appeals noted that there was no evidence of any agricultural income from the property in 2005 or 2006, no evidence of timber harvesting in 2005 or 2006, and no evidence of other activity during those years that might be part of a long-term timbering business. The court concluded that the evidence wasn't sufficient to show agricultural use. P appealed.

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