Assessing property often requires a judgment call, especially when selecting comps, deciding how the properties measure up against one another and evaluating condition. What frustrates me as a taxpayer is that the county assessors always err in the county’s favor.

According to the property tax office, the assessed value should reflect 100 percent of the property’s market value on Jan. 1 of the year of the revaluation. Our most recent revaluation was in 2009. The assessment process begins well more than a year earlier. The county begins selecting comparable sales and decides on a valuation even as the market changes. Property owners pay taxes on the assessed value until the next revaluation. Typically, Orange County revalues every four years.

When the real estate market is appreciating, taxpayers catch a break. A property owner who sold his home in December 2004 would have been able to sell it for more than the tax value, which should have reflected the full market value of the home on Jan. 1, 2001, even though he had been paying taxes on the 2001 value for nearly four years. The assessors may have started the process in late 1999, and raised the assessed value above the comps to compensate for the expected rise in the market. It was in the property owner’s best interest not to challenge the revaluation, because reassessing its value would likely result in a higher value, and he would pay more taxes, even if the tax rate had not changed.

But for the 2009 revaluation, the market had started to fall during the assessment process. It appears that the assessors did not take that into consideration, setting values as if the market would rise at its traditional steady pace. It did not apply the logic it used in a rising market, when it boosted the value to match the anticipated strong market, by lowering the value in anticipation of a weak market. By the time the revaluation process had finished, the real estate market was in a relative nosedive. The valuations were significantly higher than the price properties would fetch on the open market. Owners, naturally, challenged their revaluations. I don’t know of anyone who had their valuations dropped more than 10 percent. And I saw lots of real estate ads touting “Priced below tax value!”

Even if the real estate market stays soft through the next revaluation, expected in 2013, it is unlikely that property owners will see lower assessments. If word leaked out that property values were declining, that could affect our prized AAA rating. Chapel Hill might be dropped from the magazine lists of Top Places to Live. Town manager Roger Stancil and Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt would race each other to the tax assessor’s office to stop that scenario.

Don and I live in a neighborhood that the tax assessor expects will increase in value once Carolina North is built. All the homes are assessed at a value higher than what they would sell for at present. On Saturday nights, when we can’t afford to go to the movies because we’re saving up to pay our tax bill, we sit on the couch and look at our tax valuation and fantasize about being as wealthy as the tax assessor thinks we are.
– Nancy Oates

Now maybe the county commissioners will listen to their constituents. Nearly 45 percent of registered voters cast ballots in yesterday’s election, an “off” year devoted mainly to local races and local issues.

According to the election results reported on the Orange County website, precincts in the rural sections of the county were among those with the highest turnout, as did many precincts in and around Chapel Hill. The precincts with the lowest turnout clustered around the university and are some of the oldest neighborhoods in town.

I’m convinced that what drove people to the polls was the proposed sales tax increase. Not so much the extra $30 or $40 a year the quarter-cent hike would cost the average shopper, but the idea that the commissioners’ default mode in a budget shortfall was to milk more from taxpayers rather than see what could be trimmed from expenses. Many of us hit hard by the recession are making painful choices of what to do without. We expect at least a cursory effort along that line from our elected officials.

I still recall the supporter of the library bond who spoke at a Town Council meeting earlier this year downplaying the cost to taxpayers of taking on all that extra debt. He said that residents need only give up one latte a week to pay the increased tax burden to add a coffee shop and gift shop to the existing library. I don’t know what galled me more – that he expected me to give up my coffee in order that he not have to make a separate stop to enjoy his at the library, or that he was clueless about residents who don’t have such luxuries as lattes in their budget at all.

Voters yesterday defeated the proposed sales tax hike. Not only was I pleased with that result, but the voter turnout did my cynical heart good. Your vote can make a difference.
– Nancy Oates

At tonight’s Town Council meeting, members of ABetterSite.org will present petitions to council about the site selection process for the IFC’s new shelter. ABetterSite.org members also will address the Planning Board meeting to be held Election Day at 7 p.m. when the shelter subcommittee will present a brief report on shelter standards. Mark Peters, a member of ABetterSite.org, sent us this message from the organization:

“Last Thursday the IFC and its supporters gathered for their annual potluck dinner. A Herald Sun reporter attended this event and wrote “IFC on a mission for new shelter” [http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/10026338/article-IFC-on-a-mission-for-new-shelter?instance=main_article]. During the meeting an IFC project manager said the following:

‘Our detractors would like these men to leave our town as defeated men with their heads held down. They would like them to leave as sickly men, as broken men, as hungry men, as men who possess very little and having even less to lose.’

IFC’s past social media campaign to paint us as ignorant and fearful was wrong, but this degree of disparagement against neighbors who have legitimate concerns is a new low for the IFC. Do the faith-based organizations who support IFC believe that the end justifies such misrepresentation? Are these baseless statements consistent with its supporting congregations’ theology?

In the past year we have followed this relocation, studied the facts, and talked with many neighbors and park users however, we have never heard anyone oppose IFC’s mission to support homeless men. In fact, many of the neighbors who have concerns about the site have supported IFC through volunteering and donations.

From day one we’ve said that we oppose the location not IFC’s mission. We’ve said our neighborhood is already home to 123 detox, emergency and halfway beds. We’ve said there was no public process for site selection, no fair share considerations, and we’ve said that a location that can’t serve all men needs a better site. We’ve questioned the wisdom of placing a wet shelter – a shelter that accepts drunk and high men – near three children’s schools.

On one side of this, we have town officials and developers investing hundreds of millions of dollars in downtown development and want the shelter moved.

On the other side, we have IFC attempting to put words in the mouths of citizens who have legitimate concerns, words that these citizens have not said.

On numerous occasions IFC has said they will build relationships with neighbors and trust with citizens who are concerned about the new facility. This name-calling will in no way achieve that measure.

We [ABetterSite.org] call on IFC to stop the slander. We call on IFC’s clergy and supporters to demand that IFC stop the name-calling and focus on the facts and issues.”

Just as pulling a wisdom tooth makes room for the remaining teeth to realign, the many vacant seats on the dais at last Monday’s Town Council meeting allowed similar shifting.

First up on the agenda that night was a proposed change in the wording of the Land Use Management Ordinance pertaining to the amount of recreation space required for development. At present, the town bases its recreation requirement on the amount of land the development will take up. Developers can calculate the amount of land they need to set aside for recreation purposes by looking at the appropriate chart (multifamily or not) in LUMO, finding the zoning for the area they are planning to develop, and multiplying the total number of acres in the parcel to be developed by the multiplier found in the chart.

Town staff, in recognition of the need for increased density as Chapel Hill grows, is proposing that the calculation be based on floor space instead. So, if a 10-story condominium high-rise goes up on two acres of land, the developer would be required to provide recreation space – or payment in lieu – that would more accurately reflect the number of people living there. Staff suggested multiplying the square footage of new residential space by 0.165 in lower-density residential areas, and 0.0825 in higher-density zoning districts. Thus, projects going up downtown would be held to half the recreation space required for lower-density zones.

Only two residents voiced an opinion. Developer Scott Radway called the proposed change a great improvement over the current ordinance. Will Raymond, who approved of the concept, noted a weakness in the plan: Halving the requirement for high-density developments shifts the recreation burden from the developers to the rest of the community. Neighborhoods outside of downtown would be subsidizing high-density developers.

Raymond has long been a supporter of green space downtown, and rightly so. At present, people who work on the west end of downtown have no place to go for a lunch break other than a restaurant, unless they hike to campus. And even then, there are very few places to sit outdoors, other than the ground. A pocket park or public green space would offer a welcome respite for those who spend the rest of their day under fluorescent lights. If anything, people in high-density areas need more recreation space, not less.

Council member Jim Ward was the first to speak and said he agreed with Raymond. Developers profiting from high-density development should carry their weight when it comes to recreation space for the people living in their projects. Gene Pease added his support for Raymond’s comments.

The matter returns to council on Nov. 22.
– Nancy Oates

Franklin West LLC threw down the gauntlet. We won’t know until Nov. 22 whether the town will pick it up.

At the public hearing this past Monday, a representative of Franklin West, the group of investors who bought The Courtyard after it was foreclosed on, went over the scaled-back plans for a special use permit modification. In the modified plan, Franklin West has reduced the number of residential units from 21 to 13, and because of the reduction, has scrapped plans to replace a single-story building in the complex with a four-story building. The parking deck, originally planned to have four stories, now will have only three.

The challenge comes in constraints by the developer’s lender. In order to secure financing, the developer must have the town’s approval of the modified SUP by Dec. 31 of this year, and the certificate of occupancy by Aug. 1, 2011.

Recall that when the Altridge Group inquired about modifying the SUP on the former sorority house at 420 Hillsborough St., the principals were told that the process would take a good 18 months.

As for the C of O, work shouldn’t start before the SUP has been approved (just ask the developers of the Lightner Center in Raleigh about that). And from what I know about renovations, you’d be hard-pressed to get a kitchen remodeled by Aug. 1, even if you started today.

Barely a quorum was present Monday night to hear the presentations and comments. Ed Harrison, on the Triangle Transit board of trustees, was in Portland, Ore., representing Chapel Hill at a national transit conference. Sally Greene, Laurin Easthom and Donna Bell were out for personal or business reasons, according to Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, and town manager Roger Stancil sent deputy town manager Flo Miller in his stead. But those in attendance seemed to view the modified plan favorably.

The other challenge pertains to P.H. Craig’s parking lots abutting two sides of The Courtyard property. The modified SUP asks that the parking lots be severed from The Courtyard’s SUP, which Craig supports. However, that leaves him with three parking lots in what is residential zoning. He has applied to the town to have the land the parking lots are on rezoned, but it is unlikely that the town will approve the rezoning by Dec. 31, the date that Franklin West has to have its modified SUP approved.

Craig endured 5 years of agitation and loss of revenue after former Courtyard owner, Spencer Young, stopped paying rent on the parking lots. Craig doesn’t need any more distress by having three parking lots out of zoning compliance.

We would love to see the town move with alacrity to approve Franklin West’s application for a modified SUP. We would treat it as a case study to help other businesses trying to make a go of it in Chapel Hill.
– Nancy Oates