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Thread: Reval pain overwhelms parking lots

  1. #1
    Member steven's Avatar
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    Reval pain overwhelms parking lots

    Parking lot owners in downtown Buffalo are seething over the recent round of city property revaluations, which increased the average assessment on for-profit parking lots by more than 700 percent.
    "When I got my tax bill, I thought it was a typo. I kept counting the digits," said Jean Elsinghorst, whose assessment climbed by a whopping 8,160 percent, from $2,500 to $204,000.

    At the current nonhomestead tax rate of $37.41 per $1,000 of assessed value, Elsinghorst's 2006 city property tax bill will soar from $93.52 a year to $7,631.64.

    "After a sleepless night, I called an attorney and said, "Either I've got an incorrect tax bill, or you have a job,' " she said. "Yes, indeed, I am protesting this. It just doesn't make sense."

    Elsinghorst is among scores of parking lot owners who have appealed their assessments, questioning how the city arrived at the drastically higher values.

    Businessman James T. Sandoro, who owns a dozen surface lots in the Seneca-Swan Street neighborhood, said he was "stunned" when he opened his revaluation notice. The increase in Sandoro's assessments would make his property tax bill nearly 15 times higher - skyrocketing from $9,064 to $132,678.

    "The new tax amount is far more than we take in," Sandoro said. "The assessment in no way reflects the reality of those lots."

    Sandoro, who runs the nonprofit Buffalo Transportation/Pierce-Arrow Museum at 263 Michigan Ave., has a multiyear contract with Erie Community College for student parking for most of the slots. He currently uses the lots for museum events as needed, but his long-term plan is to turn the lots over to the museum as it expands to include the Frank Lloyd Wright filling station.

    "If this assessment situation can't be changed, we'll donate the properties to the museum and take them off the tax rolls sooner than later," Sandoro said. "I have no problem paying a fair tax rate, but this isn't fair."

    Bruna Michaux, city assessment and taxation commissioner, strongly defends the updated assessments, saying they were based on a significant amount of legwork by her staff, including a physical inspection of all 117 downtown for-profit parking lots.

    "We are committed to annual reassessment in Buffalo and have a responsibility to correct all valuation inequities," Michaux said. "The downtown parking lots were part of the 2005 revaluation program. Our job isn't popular, but we have to do what's right."

    The commissioner said field visits by assessment staff members yielded such information as parking fees and number of vehicles parked in the lots. The city did not take into account lot turnover and based its valuations on an eight-hour/five-day usage, eliminating night, weekend and holiday use.

    "If anything, our numbers are conservative," Michaux said. "Many of these lots turn over several times a day and operate outside the workday."

    As with updates of residential and commercial buildings, the city also factored in recent parking lot sale prices in its recalculation of lot values. One of the transactions used as a barometer of lot values was M&T Bank's sale of a parking lot at 470 Pearl St. to developers who plan to construct a multimillion-dollar, mixed-use building.

    Some parking lot owners have complained that $1.2 million sale provides an inflated measure of surface lot values, as the buyers paid an inflated price based on their long-term plans for construction, not its worth as a parking lot.

    Michaux noted that her office sent questionnaires to every lot owner ahead of the physical inspections, requesting detailed information on use and revenues.

    "We were virtually ignored," she said. "Fewer than 20 bothered to fill them out and return them, so we did what we could with the information we were able to gather ourselves. If they feel we're wrong, they can come in and appeal."

    Common Council Member Brian C. Davis of the Ellicott District, who has fielded several complaints from parking lot owners, has filed a resolution calling for a full review of the lot revaluations. The Council's Finance Committee has yet to consider it.

    Bert W. Simon, owner of Simon Electric Co., owns several downtown parcels that he has cobbled into surface lots, primarily used by his own employees and his tenants. If his assessments stick, he said, they will drive him out of the parking business.

    "I charge $3 a day right now, with a discounted monthly fee," he said. "I'd have to go to $15 a day to keep pace with my assessment increase, and at that rate, my lots would be empty. This isn't downtown Toronto or New York City."

    If Simon is unsuccessful in his challenge, his tax bill would climb from $5,585 to $31,782.

    "I guess I could tear up the pavement, put a fence around the lots and let them sit as little lawns," he said. "That would be extreme, but it would force them to lower the rate."

    http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...16/1068257.asp
    People who wonder if the glass is half empty or full miss the point. The glass is refillable.

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    Build, sell or pay. Hard to feel sorry for some of these guys paying less in taxes than homeowners, yet are making thousands off of parking cars. It should be based on income and development potential- that is how other cities do it.

  3. #3
    "I charge $3 a day right now, with a discounted monthly fee,"

    I've yet to find a parking lot that charges $3/day.

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    Member steven's Avatar
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    agreed and agreed
    People who wonder if the glass is half empty or full miss the point. The glass is refillable.

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    Welcome, land value taxation.
    Goodbye, easy cash cow.

    I love it!!

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    Tony Fracasso - Admin
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    Originally posted by Gabe
    Welcome, land value taxation.
    Goodbye, easy cash cow.

    I love it!!
    That is an easy way to earn some money... park someone in a booth and sit... just make sure no one dmages the cars..

  7. #7
    Member citymouse's Avatar
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    Did I read some are paying $96 a year in property taxes?
    It costs more than that to park one car for a month on those lots.
    Too bad about em'.
    "If you want to know what God thinks of money just look at the people he gave it to."

    By the way, what happened to biker? I miss the old coot.

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    I can see taxing on the net income earned on these lots. But are you telling me that they are basing the assessment on what the property might be sold for ?

    that sounds pretty unfair and unwise.

    Does this apply to any other types of investments? Some government geek decides what I might sell my GE stock for? So if the gov needs some more dough (and they always do), do they just kinda goose up my "coulda" sales price?

    As to unwise, let's say this only applies to Buffalo real estate. Great!!!!

    Let's have the City include the future value of all East Side rental property itno each tax bill. Let's see: estimated sale price--zero; estimated demolition cost--$8,000.

    Current tax bill: City pays owner $200.00 this year, with the payment going up each year as the time for demolition gets nearer.

    Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's why they paid the guy to take the AM&As building.
    Truth springs from argument among friends.

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    Member dtwarren's Avatar
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    This is from:

    http://www.orps.state.ny.us/pamphlet...ssessments.htm

    New York State Law requires all properties in your municipality (except in New York City and Nassau County) to be assessed at a uniform percentage of market value each year. This means that all taxable properties in your city, town or village must be assessed at market value or all at the same uniform percentage of market value each year. State Law also requires your assessor to include the estimate of the market value for each property, the assessment for each property and the uniform percentage for all taxable property on the tentative assessment roll.

    This pamphlet explains how your assessor can comply with the law by keeping assessments up-to-date and equitable each year. The fairness, or equity, of the real property tax depends on whether similar properties are treated alike. By keeping assessments up-to-date each year, assessors can go a long way toward ensuring that taxpayers do not pay more or less than their fair share of taxes.
    “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” ― Thomas Jefferson

  10. #10
    moonshine
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    Build, sell or pay.
    Welcome, land value taxation.
    Spoken like true socialists.

    Meet your urban planners ladies and gentlemen. They are self-professed jacks of all trades, except economics.

    I love it!!
    I knew you would.

    I'll be out of town for the next few days and unable to respond to your flaming. Enjoy my absence.

  11. #11
    Member LaNdReW's Avatar
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    wow

    Yikes, that James T. Sandoro owns 75+ pieces of property in the city.

    I wonder if he was getting smoking deals on the tax rates on his properties like Elsinghorst.
    "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis (1935)

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    Originally posted by biker
    I can see taxing on the net income earned on these lots. But are you telling me that they are basing the assessment on what the property might be sold for ?
    Isn't that how it is done with all property? If a home comparable to yours sold for more than assessment, come reval time, your assessment would increase based on the sales price. The lots are being hit because of that one large sale back in February of 2005 by M&T Bank to Croce and Uniland behind Sheas. I don't know how they compare a lot behind Sheas to one on Michigan Avenue though.

    I think Moonshine is on way to the APA Regional Conference.

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    I had several rental properties reassessed a few years ago and I protested.

    The only thing the group of people reviewing my property wanted to know was how much rent I charged. Not how much I collected, what my mortgage payments were, not what my other expenses were.

    They certainly weren't interested in what those properties were worth.
    Truth springs from argument among friends.

  14. #14
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    Originally posted by dtwarren
    This is from:

    http://www.orps.state.ny.us/pamphlet...ssessments.htm

    New York State Law requires all properties in your municipality (except in New York City and Nassau County) to be assessed at a uniform percentage of market value each year. This means that all taxable properties in your city, town or village must be assessed at market value or all at the same uniform percentage of market value each year. State Law also requires your assessor to include the estimate of the market value for each property, the assessment for each property and the uniform percentage for all taxable property on the tentative assessment roll.

    This pamphlet explains how your assessor can comply with the law by keeping assessments up-to-date and equitable each year. The fairness, or equity, of the real property tax depends on whether similar properties are treated alike. By keeping assessments up-to-date each year, assessors can go a long way toward ensuring that taxpayers do not pay more or less than their fair share of taxes.
    My question is, if essentially empty downtown parcels are being assessed at new, higher values, what about properties with buildings? A parcel with a building on it (an "improvement"), even if empty, is worth a lot more than a bare parcel, and a parcel with an occupied building on it is worth still more. If these raised assessments apply only to parking lots, I think the City will face major legal problems making them stick. If a 100' x 200' parking lot is supposedly worth $200,000, then the 100' x 200' lot next door with a 4 story building on it is worth $200,000 + the value of the building. If it's not, then the assessments aren't "uniform".

    Generally, municipalities use formulas to determine the value of bare land based on zoning, frontage, location. Topo features like slopes, streams or wetlands within the property also affect valuations. Usually, arguments over assessments stem from the building(s) on the ground, not the land itself.
    Your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s right to see his eighth birthday. -- Jim Himes

  15. #15
    Member citymouse's Avatar
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    Iwas told they look at recent sale prices of like property in the area, average it out, and base the assesment on that.
    Sounds fair to me.
    "If you want to know what God thinks of money just look at the people he gave it to."

    By the way, what happened to biker? I miss the old coot.

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