Irate residents assess options

May 13, 2006


Irate residents assess options
Home value jump means tax hike

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com
Woodbury - Leslie Bryant stood at the tax assessor's office door, gripping the same official notice that landed with a thud in hundreds of Woodbury mailboxes this week.

Like everyone else in her townhouse complex, she wanted to know: How on earth did her property assessment go up so much?

Roland Tiffany, who may well be the least popular man in town this week, explained to Bryant what he's been telling one angry homeowner after another for the last few days: Assessments at the 453-unit Timber Ridge development were too low, so he brought them in line with other home values in town.

"They're very low," Tiffany told her. "They're undervalued. It's the assessor's job to keep everything current."

In the case of Timber Ridge, that meant raising assessments by as much as 60 percent, portending a big hit in September when residents get their next school tax bills. Residents there are furious. Bryant and others say they might move because they can't afford the increase.

Even selling their homes might be a problem, though, because the higher tax bills might scare off potential buyers, says Karen Peters, an elementary school teacher whose assessment went up to $127,600, from $94,100.

"It's going to do two things," she said. "It's going to prevent us from selling, and it's going to prevent us from living."

Since Timber Ridge is a bastion of affordability in an increasingly expensive region, residents like Peters say they are among the least able to shoulder a large tax increase. Many are retirees, widows, single parents and young people in their first homes.

But the increased desirability of townhouses in a booming housing market has boosted their sale prices, which is what Tiffany used to calculate the new assessments. He argues that Timber Ridge taxes have been disproportionately low, at a time when the owners of Woodbury's million-dollar homes are paying as much as $33,000 a year.

All told, 779 Woodbury properties, including Timber Ridge and the Brookside townhouse complex in Harriman, had their assessments adjusted this year, mostly upward, Tiffany said. He said he brought them to 40 percent of their July 2005 market value, where all assessed values in Woodbury should be.

Many owners are likely to descend on Town Hall May 23 to challenge their assessments before a local review board. They must prove that their new value is unjustifiably high to get a break. Anyone unhappy with the results can appeal to an Orange County hearing officer.

Some in Timber Ridge who have listened to Tiffany say they still think the focus on their complex was unfair.

"I live in a 1,400-square-foot home on a concrete slab; this isn't the lap of luxury here," said Mariann Stepp, a first-grade teacher whose assessment in Timber Ridge went up by 55 percent.

"My taxes will probably rise to just over $7,000 for a townhouse. I'm retiring in June, and it's a quite a big addition to my budget that I hadn't anticipated."