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Clarion County — Assessed Land Value Per Acre Tool

Data pulled live from the Clarion County ArcGIS Parcel Viewer. Subject to updates.

These instructions can be downloaded seperatly on the bottom of the page.

Want to see just the ALPA tool in full screen? Click Here https://taxclarion.com/tools/ALPA.html

 

What Is This Tool?

Property taxes in Clarion County are based on assessed value — the county's estimate of what your property is worth. For land, that means the county assigns a dollar value to every acre you own.

This tool lets you see exactly how much the county says each acre of land is worth — and compare that to your neighbors.

When you divide a parcel's assessed land value by its number of acres, you get a price per acre. In a fair assessment system, similar properties in the same area should have similar prices per acre. When they don't — when one property is assessed at $343/acre and the property next door is assessed at $2,800/acre — that's worth looking into.

This tool is designed to make those comparisons easy for anyone to do, without needing a background in real estate or tax law.

What the Numbers Mean

Before using the tool, here are the key terms:

Assessed Land Value — The county's assigned value for the land itself, not counting any buildings or improvements. This is one of the numbers used to calculate your property tax bill.

Assessed Total — The full assessed value of the property, including buildings, outbuildings, and other improvements.

Deed Acres — The size of the parcel in acres, as recorded in the deed.

$ / Acre — The assessed land value divided by the number of acres. This is the main number we're looking at. It's the most useful way to compare properties of different sizes on an equal footing.

Clean & Green (C&G) — Pennsylvania's preferential assessment program for qualifying agricultural and forested land. Parcels enrolled in Clean & Green are assessed at a lower "use value" instead of fair market value. The tool flags these with a green C&G badge.

How to Use It

Step 1 — Choose Your Filters

At the top of the tool you'll see several options. You don't have to change any of them — the defaults will work fine — but here's what each one does:

  • School District — Narrow results to parcels within a specific school district. Leave it set to "All Districts" to see the entire county.
  • Min Deed Acres — Filter out very small parcels. Set this to 10 if you only want to look at larger tracts of land.
  • Min Assessed Land $ — Filters out parcels with very low land values (the default of $100 removes parcels assessed at essentially nothing).
  • Property Class — Filter by how the county has classified the property. The available options are: Exempt, Industrial, Mineral, Mobile Home, Public Utility, Residential <10 Acres, Residential >=10 Acres, Unknown, Vacant Land >=10 Acres, and Vacant Lot. Leave it set to "All Classes" to include every property type.
  • Parcel Type — Choose between all parcels, land-only parcels (no buildings), or parcels with buildings.
  • Clean & Green — Filter to show only parcels enrolled in the program, only those not enrolled, or all parcels.

Step 2 — Click "Fetch & Calculate"

The tool connects directly to the Clarion County parcel database and pulls the current data. Depending on how many parcels match your filters, this may take a few seconds. A status bar at the top will show you the progress.

Step 3 — Read the Summary Stats

Once the data loads, you'll see a row of summary cards:

  • Parcels — How many parcels matched your filters
  • Median $/Acre — The middle value. Half of all parcels are above this, half are below. This is a more reliable benchmark than the average because it isn't thrown off by a few extreme outliers.
  • Mean $/Acre — The mathematical average. If this is much higher than the median, it means a small number of very high-assessed parcels are pulling the average up.
  • Min and Max $/Acre — The lowest and highest values in the dataset
  • Range (10–90th percentile) — The spread of the middle 80% of parcels, which gives you a realistic picture of what "normal" looks like for this group

Below the summary you'll see the Anomaly Summary, which tells you how many parcels fall into each flag category and what the ratio is between the highest and lowest assessed values. A 28,000× ratio between the most and least expensive parcels per acre — as we've seen in the county data — is not normal.

Step 4 — Explore the Table

The main table shows every parcel that matched your filters. Here's what each column means:

ColumnWhat It Shows
Parcel Number The county's ID for this parcel. Click it to open the parcel in the county's map viewer.
Current Owner The name on record with the county
Municipality The township or borough the parcel is in
School District Which school district the parcel falls under
Property Class How the county has classified the property
Assessed Total $ The full assessed value including buildings
Assessed Land $ The land-only assessed value
Deed Acres Size of the parcel
$ / Acre The key number — assessed land value divided by acres
vs Median How much higher or lower this parcel's $/acre is compared to the median
C&G Green badge if the parcel is enrolled in Clean & Green
Flag HIGH (top 10%), MID-HIGH (top 25%), or LOW (bottom 10%)

You can sort the table by clicking any column header. Click once to sort, click again to reverse the order. The $/Acre column is sorted highest-first by default so the most anomalous parcels appear at the top.

You can also search using the search box — type an owner name, parcel number, municipality, or school district and the table will filter instantly.

Comparing a Parcel to Its Neighbors

This is where the tool gets most useful.

Click any row in the table to select it. The row will highlight in gold and the selected parcel's name will appear in the toolbar. Then choose a comparison radius and click "Compare Surrounding."

The three radius options are:

  • Conjoining only — Shows only the parcels that physically share a boundary with the selected parcel. These are the most direct neighbors and the most relevant comparison for identifying unfair assessments.
  • 0.5 miles — A wider neighborhood view
  • 1 mile — An even broader area

The comparison window will show you:

Selected Parcel card — A summary of the parcel you chose, including its assessed total, assessed land, acres, $/acre, and its rank among all neighbors (for example, "#1 of 7 — 14th percentile" means this parcel has the lowest $/acre of its 7 conjoining neighbors).

Area Statistics — The median, mean, minimum, and maximum $/acre for all parcels in the comparison radius, plus how far the selected parcel's value sits above or below the neighborhood median.

Neighbor Table — Every qualifying parcel in the radius, sorted lowest-to-highest by $/acre, with a color bar showing each parcel's value relative to the highest in the group. Your selected parcel is marked with a ★.

Saving and Sharing Your Results

The tool includes several ways to save what you find:

  • Download Excel (main screen) — Exports the full filtered dataset to a spreadsheet, including all columns and flag categories, plus a summary statistics tab.
  • Download Excel (comparison window) — Exports just the comparison results for the selected parcel and its neighbors.
  • Print (main screen) — Sends the stats and table to your printer or saves as a PDF. The query controls are hidden automatically so only the data prints.
  • Print (comparison window) — Prints just the comparison results.

If you find something that looks like an unfair assessment, the Excel export gives you a clean record you can bring to a tax appeal hearing or share with others.

A Note on the Data

This tool pulls data directly and in real time from the Clarion County parcel database. The numbers you see are the same numbers the county is using right now. We don't modify or interpret the data — we just make it easier to see.

Assessed land value and market value are not the same thing. The county's assessed values may not reflect what a property would actually sell for. What this tool is looking for is internal consistency — whether the county is applying its own standards equally across similar properties. When two neighboring parcels of the same type and size are assessed at wildly different rates per acre, that inconsistency is worth questioning regardless of what the market says.

If you find a discrepancy that affects your own property, you have the right to appeal your assessment. Information on that process can be found through the Clarion County Assessment Office.

Data source: Clarion County ArcGIS Parcel Viewer · taxclarion.com

Attachments:
 ALPA Tool.pdf1594 kB0 Downloads2026-05-29 09:09

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