59.57% Of City Real Estate Tax-Exempt In Latest Annual Calculation

Don't be fooled. They are already planning the 8% increase. They just want to be able to blame someone else come election day. Covid, Yale, the state of CT...anyone but those currently in power.

It doesn't matter how much revenue is raised; uncontrolled spending will keep us behind the 8 ball .
Everybody knows you can't run your household like that-- keep spending but get another part time job ....... this is turning into propaganda news now. Even the poll reflects NH's new motto-- GIMMEE!!!

Make no mistake - tax increase is looming. This stuff is the fig leaf for the naked truth. By the way - what's the value of the real estate being tax deferred? The article notes phase ins are bringing in higher grand list values. How much is not on the grand list?

Again another symptom of New Haven's long term sickness. If not drug gang violence for over forty years, that management has tried to stop with pipe dreams, and unsuccessful theories with plans from Yale think tanks(that were never meant to succeed , as the real strategy was to devalue real estate in neighborhoods bordering the campus, by allowing the gang violence to continue, as police resources were wasted chasing their tails by following policies created by Yale, to pull more property off the tax list.), the slow consumption of real estate by Yale. One can juggle the numbers for a "nonprofit", so much like the super wealthy who turn all their assets into "charities" to avoid taxes, as the media has shown us during Trump's reign. Like the Deadly Violence, Yale never paying their fair share, is the second obvious SYPMTOM of New Haven's sickness . WHY? That's just as obvious; greed, and elitism, economic class prejudice, racism. It has and still is so obvious. But delusions, and pipe dreams warp vision of the obvious. Intelligent words, with no merit. Policy plans, with not chance of success, created by individuals, assigned by institutions, that guarantee the outcome of research and studies, so they fit the plans of the university to continue suppressing those of the "lower" classes, that only they designate. It's a shame. Oh, Cambridge is so nice; too bad Yale doesn't have the public spirit of a Harvard. Or Columbia. Or Penn.

The problem is that the only way to get development in a municipality with a high mill rate is by implementing a tax fixing agreement or deferral program. Neither will have an immediate impact on the grand list.

New Haven hosts the tax exempt properties and provides services that are used by the rest of the cities and towns in the county, and also for much of the state. The colleges and universities, the hospitals, the jail, the homeless shelters, the halfway houses, the group homes, the rehab services, the mental health services, the food pantries and soup kitchens, the low income public housing, the courthouses, the city, state and federal government buildings and services, and so on and so forth.
As a result close to 60% of its property is tax exempt.
It's time for the state of CT to change the way taxes are collected, the way they reimburse the cities and towns with tax exempt properties, and for providing services to the region, what is eligible for tax exempt status and what is not eligible. It's time to regionalize to reduce costs, reduce duplication, to share costs and responsibilities instead of loading them all onto the shoulders of a few municipalities.
You can say NH should manage their funds better, but there's only so much they can do with what they have, and you're ignoring the fact that they're being asked to manage way more public and social services with far fewer resources than its richer neighbors.
Kind of like saying "let them eat cake," while they can't even afford bread, and then blaming them for not working harder to earn more money while they're starving.
You all remember what happened to Marie Antoinette and the French aristocracy during the French Revolution, right?

And yet, Yale continues to take a massive tax break from New Haven when the city is in crisis from COVID-19.

These percentages are based on land and building values. What is the % of the land area is tax exempt? What are those percentages between Yale and the City of New Haven?

The city itself is responsible for 25% of the tax exempt real estate. How much of this is vacant land, surface parking lots or empty buildings? Does this include the vacant homes and buildings purchased by LCI?

@Skulier asks the right questions. The headline is misleading. The attributed value to tax-exempt properties is based on the tax-exempt work taking place; the value exists in good part because of the type of (tax-exempt) work. The real estate of expensive labs and medical facilities is not the same as residential housing.

And a reminder: in most (all?) states, non-profits do not pay taxes on properties they use for non-profit purposes.

The city and its residents can kick Yale all it wants for its tax exempt status. The City and the residents should be kicking the State of CT for not abiding by the PILOT. The state is at fault, not Yale.

FYI if Yale complex was not in New Haven what would take its place, what other employers would quickly fill the void ?

New Haven is not great, its Yale that makes New Haven what it is today. Prove me wrong!

The numbers don't add up. In the Grand List table, the bulleted items under non-taxable are about 1.8 billion short of the 8.5 B non-taxable total. What accounts for that difference. And 8.5 is 53% of 15.9, not 60%. I'm sure there are explanations, but it would help to have all the data and for the numbers to add up.

It's a complicated question, but seems to me that non-profits contribute to the city in different ways. Some, like museum and houses of worship, nourish our souls. Others, like Yale, hire thousands of people and bring enormous commerce to the city. YNHH provides access to high quality medical care.
Maybe its too simplistic to think that we should think of all non-profits in the same way, but it's hard to imagine how or why some should pay property tax but others not.

"New Haven is not great, its Yale that makes New Haven what it is today. Prove me wrong!"

You are wrong to trash New Haven. You are wrong to attach so much emotion to a structural problem that simply needs to be solved.

Yale and YNHH are the economic base of the city. Of course, this isn't an argument at all. It is just an empirical fact, and it is very silly to ask someone to prove you wrong on something that is just a fact. It is worth noting that this fact is about as interesting as saying the sky is blue.

The fact certainly does not argue for the idea that people shouldn't expect Yale to do more for the city or observe that it is receiving massive subsidies from a very poor city in the form of a tax break.

Instead, this empirical fact just reaffirms a primary structural challenge of for New Haven's government. New Haven's primary industries receive enormous tax breaks that many industries have historically not received. This creates growing tax breaks that are increasingly difficult to sustain. There needs to be a solution to this problem, and Yale has an important role to play in the solution. If the problem was fixed people in the city would be better off. Yale could solve this problem entirely and still be one of the wealthiest universities in the world.

@CityYankee "uncontrolled spending"?? What city are you living in? I know CT is one of the most unequal and segregated places on earth, but there are clearly two New Havens as well. In the New Haven I live in, schools have been underfunded for decades (at least $10k per pupil less than Greenwhich schools), vital services and departments have been cut to the bone, entire neighborhoods have been left out of economic development and opportunities. This is not a spending problem it's a revenue and fairness problem. Year after year our inability to collect taxes on over half the city has us getting deeper in the hole. Now COVID has put us over the cliff. How is it fair for 40% of us to pay 100% of the taxes, let alone to subsidize a wealthy corporation like Yale. Non-Profit in name only. When you're sitting on $31 billion and earning $10 million every day on interest alone, can you really be called non profit? The many "benefits" of Yale are in no way outweighing the severe damage caused by their enormous tax break. No city in these conditions could put together a sustainable budget that cares for its residents at even the most basic level.

@austerity - there is a big difference between what you perceive and what the numbers show. Covid didn't push us off a cliff, but it's nice excuse as the mayor pushes an unpopular tax hike to cover the retirements of city employees. Revenues aren't down 25% like in most businesses and any missed income wouldn't' add up the 60MM hole projected.

The comparison to Greenwich is a nice touch I bet that strikes a nerve for most but that school system has almost half the pupils. Better questions , how many superintendents per 1000 kids, how many vacant schools in each town; what does each spend on bussing? What's the starting teacher salary at each location? WhaTs the benefits package in each?

The city doesn't get budget transparency from BOE so you really can't make any assumptions. How long has that been the case and what have the graduation rate and test scores done since then?

City services gutted? We have rightfully cut positions since the 90s but in the last ten years have done little more than cut vacant roles; hardly a hard choice. Still police and fire are millions over budget on OT. How many fire chief do we have?

Over half of our budget goes towards debt service, pensions or items that can't be revisited until the city defaults. We need better starting salaries for teachers and police but we can't afford to pay retirees 250% of their career salary and 100% of their medical costs after they leave. Poor spending decisions from past and current administrations.

So in conclusion yes uncontrolled spending.