New Haven Independent

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | February 3, 2009 7:20 PM

No sh@t!

how many more schools is JD gonna build on property that was formerly privately held and taxable?

Posted by: robn | February 3, 2009 7:44 PM

I'd like to hear a much more in depth report on assessment appeals. I felt I personally had a strong argument for a reduction and got blown off by the city. The 30 day window to file an appeal with CT tax court is unreasonably short for people of limited means who don't have an attorney on retainer. I'd also be very interested in seeing the list of people whose appeals were accepted to see if it included politically connected individuals.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | February 3, 2009 9:40 PM

I guess Mayorga decided to come clean this year. So, the phase in rolls on - guarantees homeowners will see an 8.2% increase minimum...nearly three times the rate of inflation. This assumes the mill rate stays the same which in every other city and town in CT, goes down. Not in New Haven. The increase in payments from property owners - $17 million covers more than half the money the mayor needs to keep everything the same...that's $17 million from families under stress and duress. Pitiful.

Posted by: jawbone | February 4, 2009 9:41 AM

Lets see. The downtown site that now has the COOP High School built on it has had for the past 16 years (at least)a nightclub, a series of restaurants in a former white castle, a bbq joint that burned down, a tire shop, an abandoned dry cleaners that was used to store tires and a surface parking lot.
Personally, I'll take a high school and all the life that comes with it over 16 more years of urban desolation on that particular site.
How long we gonna flog this dead horse? No knight in shining armor is ever going to ride into our town and build on that site. We could be waiting the rest of our lives for that to happen...

Posted by: Bill Saunders | February 4, 2009 4:10 PM

Robn,

I think there is a portion of the 'appeals' that are adjustments to new condominium assessments. It's a correction the city made so the phase-in was being applied fairly across the boards.

From my understanding, condo's that were new to the market (did not have a five year old assessment on the books), were given a pro-rated previous assessment(you need that number to apply the phase-in formula) to reflect what the market value would have been, so they would also get the benefit of the phase-in.

I personally know two recent condo buyers that fall into this category, and their taxes went significantly down as a result. The city sent out notices to that group of 'aggrieved parties' in late summer.

Posted by: concerned | February 4, 2009 7:13 PM

Right!!! It now is the fault of tax appeals by poor residents that have gotten royally screwed by this brainless administration. And yes it also has to do with residents auto taxes dropping because non of us can afford a new car to pay the city higher taxes on these cars. And mayor, thank you very much for building more and more and more schools, taking prime land off the tax roles and destroying part of a neighborhood where old folks had no where to go, but were driven out anyway because of your mission of building more schools sir!
Mayor, I know these comments don't bother you because you feel your are bigger than life. The truth is you were great at the start but you have lost sight of what you should be doing. You have no compassion for the everyday folks that go to work and are bleeding, you have no compassion for the elderly. Big deal you freeze thier taxes at 70 years old, give me a break, make it younger and help all senior citizens. And let me tell you something else, half these schools will not be filled in a few years because you over built and our city is shrinking and people need to leave because of your nonsense. But Mr.Mayor what do you care. Please contact our president and ask him for a job, the farther away you are the better off this city will be.

Posted by: jackie | February 4, 2009 8:45 PM

hmm. i wonder. if i try to sell my house and it comes in under the assessed value, will the city refund the extra several thousand in taxes i've been paying since the reval?

Posted by: Bill Saunders | February 5, 2009 3:36 PM

Concerned,

I think the real beneficiaries of any true tax relief are those top 10 taxpayers listed above.

I did a little 'research project' last summer, to try and answer the question: "What would our mil rate be if there were no phase-in of assessments?"

Doing some backwards math, using info provided from the assessor office, the current real mil rate would be 35.18 (I'll show work if you ask).

Well that's a great reduction.

Now take that mil-rate and apply it to your full valuation(at 70%). You would sadly find out that you would be paying much more if there were no phase-in. I performed the very calculation on a random sampling of homes in disparate NH neighborhoods, and found that most everybody pays even more with no phase-in. This makes no apparent sense if the cities expenses remained the same.

The phase-in is structured to give tax relief to the property owners who experience a disparate jump in their assessment, at the expense of property whose properties have decreased in value.

So if all of the residential property is paying a greater tax burden, the commercial property is receiving the benefit. It is not about balancing the disparity between St. Ronan's and the Hill, its about strictly benefiting the commercial sector, who saw their relative property values go down.

When John says the property tax system is broken, he is right, but articulates the wrong reasons. Your property taxes are not going up because of the phase-in, they are going up because commercial real estate went down. With out the phase-in things would be much worse for the average joe.

The true fallacy perpetrated by the administration is that the mil rate is something you can manage. It is nothing but a resultant number (expenses/ grand list).

If the administration actually focussed on reducing its expenses and increasing the real grand list, we wouldn't be having any of these discussions. How bout that for a real goal! (can we codify it, BOA)

Posted by: concerned | February 6, 2009 3:54 PM

To Bill: All your points well taken. I was not complaining about the phase in at all, thank god there is one going on. The problem is the high taxes period. This mayor is spending too much, building too many schools and has depended on the state too much. It was laughable when he started crying the blues about how many sacrifices will have to be made (by others ofcourse, not him or his cronies) because of the state cutting back help to the cities. He has known for quite awhile state has continued to cut back and he knew it would not be any better this time around. So tell me why he kept spending. He also needs to stop hiring, how can he justify lay offs and continues to hire? He will never get unions to give up anything when he continues to hire and spend. I heard he just advertised for an exclusive engineer position for public works. Why? Isn't there an entire Engineering Department. And the salary will blow your socks off.

Posted by: FacChek | February 7, 2009 2:43 PM

Correction to the list below:

The top ten tax-payers in the city are now:

Strange how Yale could be one of the top taxpayers and the least taxed at the same time.

Yale payments on building permits is NOT a property, or personal property tax, it's a use service tax and should not be counted as a tax receipt for property.

Therefore: The new number one......

1. 52,780 taxpaying housing units in the city of New Haven.

1A. Yale University
2. United Illuminating
3. PSEG Power Connecticut
4. SNET
5. Fusco
6. WE George St. LLC
7. Ikea Property, Inc.
8. Bella Vista/Village Park
9. New Boston Long Wharf, LLC
10. Temple Street Assoc.

Posted by: jesus guitierrez | February 8, 2009 5:02 AM

Concerned.

You forgot the Board of Aldermen removed Miller from Director of Public Works 3 years back. If he couldn't do the job then what makes you think he can now. If you need a plan approved at Engineering you must wait 2 weeks. You go in and 9 times out of 10 the engineers are asleep at their desks.