City budget makers will factor in the pending results of state-mandated revaluation of taxable property for the spending plan that will be submitted to the City Council in April. The city got a late start in the reval process after state legislative leaders in Hartford rejected the city’s request to delay it last year. Reval can be a dicey proposition for bean counters and property owners with a corresponding mil rate adjustment based on the results. The city’s current mil rate is 41.855. For recent mil rate history see here. Financial watchdog John Marshall Lee raises some questions as taxpayers await the news of assessments in the coming weeks. From Lee:
We await new assessments in Bridgeport at this moment based on values as of October 1, 2013. The last valuation provided assessments based on values at October 1, 2008. Basically for property taxation purposes, land will support people renting or owning residences or businesses operating commercial enterprises. And the assessment data will separate the ‘land’ values from the values of ‘improvements’ that can include homes, apartment buildings, office towers or retail stores and factories, for example. Current values are available at data.visionappraisal.com/BridgeportCT.
The 2008 assessments are still in evidence. Were you to review land values per acre by themselves you will find:
• 1.24 acres of land owned by a major construction firm in the city that is on Yellow Mill Pond is assessed for $1,170 or $944/acre;
• In the South End along the water 10.61 acres owned by a manufacturer of helicopters is assessed at over $510,000 for a $48,000/acre valuation;
• A large block of land owned by DuPont family interests consists of 344 acres with an assessment of $216,780 for a low $630/acre land valuation;
• An international oil company has 20.33 acres of land with an assessment over $4.5 Million that works out to $227,000/ acre independent of ‘improvements’;
• Value per acre of Residence A property can show a worth of more than $800,000 and Residence AA in Black Rock may exceed $1.5 Million/acre.
Can anyone simply explain the anomalies above? Per acre values ranging from $630 to over $1.5 Million? Land values that support commercial activity of various types that provide revenues to businesses and owners is taxed at very low values, and residences receive assessments based on much higher land values. How is that? Can the Tax Assessor account for this gross disparity? What part of this assessment or valuation activity serves to move commercial owners to develop, or clean up, put the property to better use, or sell? Isn’t that what economic development is about?
What reform of land valuation process with assessments trending in a different direction can bring some much-needed change in raising necessary revenues in the City? Will a different formula be used to encourage owners to improve their property? Is it worthwhile to the owners of non-residential property to pay higher taxes and stay as their land values grow, or will they sell and get out? What supports such wide value differentials per acre as significant as above? Is it time for reform of assessment valuations in favor of resident owners and away from our subsidizing commercial operations or owners of wealth to the extent indicated who live outside our community anyway? How will the current administration move this topic to become part of open, accountable and transparent governance? Will the current revaluation show any awareness of the problems or any steps towards reform? Time will tell.
JML–I do not know, but let us look at the DuPont and the International oil properties. DuPont may have gotten a tax ‘deal’ to move to the city and I-Oil did not. The DuPont property may be contaminated. If the contamination is bad enough the effective value of the property could be zero. I.e., the cost of cleanup meets or exceeds the property value. The International Oil property could be close to highways, trains or the shore and DuPont’s property has accessibility problems, making it worth less. There could be geographical problems. DuPont’s property may be large but only a small portion is buildable. Some or all of it may be slab or ledge, wetlands, too much grade (steep hills), covered by water or protected in some way, like a nature reserve for endangered three-toed urban tree frogs. DuPont pays for the property that is usable and when you average in the unusable property the per-acre value drops to an artificially low number. Companies that do research like to have buffer zones around their facilities to keep prying eyes away. Then they devise a way to make those buffer zones tax free. The low per-acre assessment does not necessarily mean something shady is going on. Like DuPont is receiving undue tax consideration because they donate heavily to one political party or another.
The Black Rock property could be a big yard with 180-=degree shorefront vista views, which could support several dozen high-end houses, like the Ruger mansion on Battery Hill. If you own all those building lots and you want to keep them empty, you have to pay. The other choice would be to fight the assessment. One common thing to do is to claim the property is unbuildable for the reasons I stated earlier. If you do that then you have made your property worthless (worthless as in zero, not worth less) and splitting up the property would be impossible because no one would buy a building lot you cannot build on. Now you have to sell the entire property as a unit. You cannot subdivide and section it off. Subdividing could make the property easier to sell (selling 10 $100K places is easier than 1 $1million place) and ultimately worth more than the whole.
Note: I am just offering ideas. I did not do any real research into the issue. Any assessment is little more than an educated opinion and those opinions can be swayed by any number of influences.
BOE SPY,
I do not know, either. That was the purpose in putting the questions on paper.
However, should someone be able to explain the differences, all of them? Do we have anyone in City employment who has the certifications, experience and knowledge to explain them in simple form and with a consistency across like-kind properties in the City? And why do business properties seem to have a lower land valuation than many residences in the City? Is this an important issue? Time will tell.
Yeah, it is important. This kind of thing is one of the problems re-eval’s solve. It forces the city to look at all the property in the city at the same time with the same set of eyes. It is also a chance to look to see if any of the tree frogs are still living on the protected land. If they all moved to Fairfield there is no reason to continue to protect that land. Re-eval’s are a chance to see if any ‘tax deals’ expired without anyone noticing and to look at any improvement that may have been made to property the city was unaware of. Like a garden shed or garage that grew in the yard or an apartment that formed in the basement.
The city assessor’s office should have each assessment on record. The assessments should contain: block and lot number, property description, property value, owner, list of improvements and a narrative section that explains how the assessor came to his conclusions. That narrative is what you are looking for.
*** Property assessments continue to go down and the mil rates go up, “stuck somewhere in the middle, you say?” Regardless of how much money you sink into your properties, either for renting purposes, property flipping or just keeping up with the Joneses on your own home, it’s a losing battle in this city of “no return!” *** WELCOME TO ZOMBIELAND! ***