Thomas Breen photo
Acting City Assessor Alex Pullen.
Winstanley Enterprises will pay $815,000 less in property taxes this year for a Yale-oriented Science Park garage it owns.
Winstanley will also pay $2.3 million more this year for the 100 College St. Alexion laboratory and office tower, which has begun weaning off tax deferrals.
Those are two of the largest year-over-year individual changes to the municipal tax rolls according to the 2018 grand list, which details all 27,400-plus parcels of land in the city.
Acting City Assessor Alex Pullen provided a complete copy of the 2018 grand list to the New Haven Independent this week. The city assessor also provided a complete copy of the 2017 grand list, as well as high-level summaries explaining the key year-over-year changes between the two.
Click here and here to download the 2018 and 2017 complete grand lists as Excel spreadsheets. The spreadsheets list each property’s owner in Column D, each property’s address in Columns K and L, each property’s gross assessment in Column BE, each property’s net taxable assessment in Column BF, and each property’s total tax-exempt value in Column BG.
Click here and here to download Pullen’s PDF summaries of the document.
At a Finance Committee workshop earlier this month about Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2019 – 2010 (FY20), Pullen told alders that roughly $8.2 billion, or 55 percent, of assessed property value in New Haven is tax exempt.
The city’s net taxable grand list, or the total amount of taxable real estate, personal property, and motor vehicles in New Haven, is worth around $6.6 billion.
The grand list spreadsheets provide a detailed, parcel-by-parcel breakdown of the taxable and tax-exempt real estate in the city according to each parcel’s assessed value, which is 70 percent of the parcel’s appraisal or fair market value. The spreadsheets do not include numbers on personal property and motor vehicles.
They reveal where the city’s most valuable property lies, and what came on, and off, the tax rolls between 2017 and 2018.
They show in detail exactly how the city’s net taxable real estate decreased by over $25.1 million, or 0.45 percent, between 2017 and 2018. (When taking personal property and motor vehicles into account, the total net taxable grand list decreased by a $15.1 million, or 0.23 percent.)
Much of this decrease was due to buildings shifting from taxable to tax-exempt thanks to new or increased use by tax-exempt entities like Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital.
The grand list comparison also reveals which properties are coming off of the city’s tax assessment deferral program, and how much they will soon contribute to the city tax rolls.
The city’s mill rate is currently 42.98, which means that taxpayers owe $42.98 in property taxes for every $1,000 in assessed value.
New Tax Exemptions
Google Maps photo
2 Church St. South.
The five largest increases to the city’s tax-exempt real estate list (that is, property that is now off of the tax rolls) are:
• A net $19.9 million drop for a six-story office building at 150 Munson St., which is owned by Winstanley Enterprises through a holding company called We 150 Munson LLC.
Pullen noted that the building has been divided into two parcels: one taxable and one tax-exempt. The tax-exempt parcel, per Pullen’s summary, is “occupied by Yale University: IT Services, Finance & Business Administration, Yale Health Plan, Office of Research & Administration & Yale Shared Services.”
The tax-exempt portion of the building is worth $19.97 million, while the taxable portion is worth $3.65 million.
Winstanley will pay over $858,000 less in property taxes this year than last year for this property.
• A net $18.9 million drop for a six-story parking garage at 276 Winchester Ave., which is owned by Winstanley Enterprises through the holding company Fenix I LLC.
This building has also been divided into taxable and tax-exempt parcels. The tax-exempt portion represents “the allocation of spaces on Yale University Employee Parking Plan.”
The tax-exempt portion of the building is worth $18.9 million, while the taxable portion is worth $9.65 million.
Winstanley will pay over $815,000 less in property taxes this year than last year for this property.
• A net $14.3 million drop for a single-story warehouse at 344 Winchester Ave., which is also owned by Winstanley Enterprises, through a holding company called Renaissance I LLC.
Pullen noted that the building is now 100 percent occupied by Yale University tenants, including dining, facilities, Yale Press, and library services. The building is now entirely tax exempt.
Winstanley will pay over $616,000 less in property taxes this year than last year for this property.
• A net $6.4 million drop for a three-story office building at 123 College St., which is also owned by Winstanley Enterprises, through a holding company called W E 135 College Street LLC.
Pullen’s office has split this property into two parcels, one taxable and one tax-exempt. The taxable property is worth $648,690, while the tax-exempt portion is worth $6.3 million, and houses Yale’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, Broadcast Media, Yale School of Medicine Cardiology, Occupational Medicine and Internal Medicine.
Winstanley will pay over $273,000 less in property taxes this year than last year for this property.
• A net $4.8 million drop for a five-story office building at 2 Church St. South, which is also owned by Winstanley Enterprises, through a holding company called WE 2 Church Street South LLC.
This property has been divided into tax-exempt and taxable parcels. The taxable parcel is worth $1.7 million, while the tax-exempt portion is worth $4.8 million. The tax-exempt portion of the building is used by the Yale Department of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Neurology, the Yale School of Public Health, the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, the Yale Stress Center, and the Yale Office of Cooperative Research.
Winstanley will pay over $209,000 less in property taxes this year than last year for this property.
Taxable Grand List Increases
Yale University photo
The Alexion building at 100 College St.
The five largest increases to the city’s taxable real estate list (that is, property that is now on the tax rolls) are:
• A net $53.8 million increase for the 14-story Alexion building at 100 College St., which is owned by Winstanley Enterprises through the holding company WE 100 College Street LLC.
The research tower, which is assessed at a total of $110.8 million, is now taxable at an assessed value of $57 million. Thanks to the building’s participation in the city’s tax assessment deferral program, the building was taxable at only $3.2 million of assessed value last year.
That means that Winstanley will pay $2.3 million more this year than last year for property taxes for 100 College.
• A net $4.1 million increase for the six-story, 238-unit Corsair apartment complex at 1040 State St., which is owned by Barry Green and Carol Chor Woon Yu through their Boston-based holding company CH Lighthouse Corsair LLC.
The complex, which is assessed at a total of $31.9 million, is now taxable at an assessed value of $5.6 million. Thanks to the building’s participation in the city’s tax assessment deferral program, the building was taxable at only $1.4 million of assessed value last year.
That means that the landlords will pay nearly $180,000 more this year than last year in property taxes for the apartment complex.
• A net $4 million increase for the two-story, 120-bed University Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation center at 915 Ella T. Grasso Blvd., which is owned by David Silberstein through the holding company Coal New Haven LLC.
The center’s assessed worth increased to $5.4 million in 2018, up from $1.4 million in 2017, thanks to $3.6 million worth of building permits pulled for the property last year.
That means that the landlord will pay around $170,000 more this year than last year in property taxes for the center.
• A net $3.1 million increase for the five-story, 168-unit apartment complex at 200 College St., which is owned by Leong Siew Fatt through the holding company Dwell Students (New Haven) LLC.
The complex, which is assessed at a total of $26.7 million, is now taxable at an assessed value of $9.2 million. Thanks to the building’s participation in the city’s tax assessment deferral program, the building was taxable at only $6 million of assessed value last year.
That means that the landlord will pay around $136,000 more this year than last year in property taxes for the apartment complex.
• A net $2.6 million increase for the six-story, 138-unit condo complex at 1245 Chapel St., which is owned by the New York-based holding company SVLP01 LLC. The complex, which is assessed at a total of $20 million, is now taxable at an assessed value of $6 million. Thanks to the building’s participation in the city’s tax assessment deferral program, the building was taxable at only $3.4 million of assessed value last year.
That means that the landlord will pay around $114,000 more this year than last year in property taxes for the condo complex.
Highest Valued Properties In The City
The grand list document also reveals that only five of the top 50 most valuable properties in the city are taxable.
The five most valuable tax-exempt properties in the city are:
• Yale New Haven Hospital’s (YNHH) Smilow Cancer Center at 17 Park St., which has an assessed worth of $465.8 million.
• Yale’s Benjamin Franklin College and Pauli Murray College dormitories at 70 Sachem St., which are assessed at $401.8 million.
• YNHH’s St. Raphael’s Campus at 1450 Chapel St. which is assessed at $277.4 million.
• The Water Pollution Control Authority’s East Shore Water Pollution Abatement Facility at 345 East Shore Pkwy., which is assessed at $204.2 million.
• Southern Connecticut State University’s Fitch Street campus, which is assessed at $195.2 million
The five most valuable taxable properties are:
• A Winstanley Enterprises-owned biomedical research building at 300 George St., which is assessed at $65.6 million.
• Winstanley’s Alexion building at 100 College St., which is now paying taxes at an assessed worth of $57 million. Once the building moves entirely off of the city’s tax assessment deferral program, it will be taxed at an assessed worth of $110.8 million.
• The Fusco Corporation’s lab and pharmacy building at 55 Park St., which is assessed at $55.5 million.
• The 500-unit apartment tower at 360 State St., which is assessed at $47.8 million. The building is owned by the Maryland-based holding company MEPT Chapel Street LLC.
• YNHH’s two three-story office buildings and one six-story parking garage at 2 Howe St., which are assessed at $45 million.
If the Corsair at 1040 State Street sold for approximately $89.8 million in 2018, why does the City assess it for $31.9 million?
If 100 College Street has a $125 million mortgage to Wells Fargo, and sold interests to other owners at values substantially higher, why does the City assess it for $110.8 million?
If 200 College Street sold for $70 million in 2017, why does the City assess it for $26.7 million?
I could go on and on and on with the assessment mistakes. Mistakes have led enriched wealthy out of state owners, and shifted the tax burden to the everyone else that is fairly assessed.