Posted on 02/21/2005 9:03:47 PM PST by TBP
AFTER struggling to fix up a brownstone in Harlem for the last 16 months, Meyghan Hill, a model and actress, and her husband, Daniel Scarola, a ballroom dancing instructor, are thinking about giving up and moving out. But what may drive them away is not the neighborhood, which they have come to love, nor their four-family house, where they have painstakingly stripped a century of varnish and paint from doors and balusters, but the shock of a tax notice they received last month from the New York City Department of Finance.
The notice indicated that the taxes on their 19-foot-wide house, only $4,100 when they bought it, would be going up in July to about $23,600, a fivefold increase of $19,000 - more, they say, than they can possibly afford after paying their hefty mortgage. Right now, they have no tenants.
Like thousands of other owners of homes and small apartment buildings, they have been abruptly caught up in a new campaign by city tax officials to enforce laws that allow them to raise taxes sharply when owners file for permits for major renovations of older buildings.
These large increases are being imposed at a time when state law requires the city to slowly phase in regular assessment increases for other homeowners over years or even a decade or more in some cases.
"We are panicked and we can't afford it, and if we sell, the price will be lower because of all the taxes," Ms. Hill said. "We are being punished for fixing up the building and trying to improve the neighborhood."
It turned out that while Ms. Hill was working on her modest renovation, with $60,000 in construction funds after a second mortgage fell through, city tax assessors were busily reviewing her filing with the Department of Buildings. The filing showed that she planned to convert a single-room-occupancy building to a four-family dwelling, and using its standard construction cost guidelines, the city increased the value of her home by $370,000.
The largest tax increases were in small apartment buildings and four-family brownstones, which pay a much higher tax rate than one- to three-family homes. For every $100 of improvements, they are being charged $5.50 in extra property tax, compared with 91 cents for owners of one- to three-family houses.
In short, the couple and other brownstone owners like them have been caught up this tax season in the netherworld of New York City's property tax system, which under state law protects the low taxes of some groups of taxpayers while allowing huge increases for others.
A review of tax assessment records shows that about 460 of these four-family houses and small apartment buildings were facing tax increases because of renovations, nearly three times the number the year before, including more than 260 row houses. Taxes are scheduled to rise by $10,000 or higher in more than 200 of these buildings, including 76 row houses, an increase from 20 the year before. The figures exclude buildings with city tax exemptions.
Martha E. Stark, the city finance commissioner, confirmed that in the last few months the department had reassigned 40 assessors, mainly from the Manhattan office, to catch up with a backlog of permits from several years ago, and to impose assessments for them.
She said that she was aware of concerns that the high assessment increases might lead some homeowners to delay maintenance or renovations and allow properties to decay, but that her assessors were fairly applying existing state property tax law. "Our job is to reflect the market value in property under state law," she said. "If this is unfair, we need to work to change the law."
Town houses on the East Side, West Side and downtown also saw their taxes rise, but the greatest increases, both in numbers and percentage of tax increased, appeared to be in Harlem and in parts of Brooklyn like Bedford-Stuyvesant; both are in the midst of a wave of renovation and reinvestment in older buildings.
This gal was on H&C this evening--she and her husband w/b occupying one apt., either her or her husband's father (who has Alzheimers) w/b occupying another. That leaves them with two rentals. Still a nice income from those rentals and they will eventually have the father's apt. as a rental.
"We are panicked and we can't afford it, and if we sell, the price will be lower because of all the taxes," Ms. Hill said. "We are being punished for fixing up the building and trying to improve the neighborhood."
Yep. It is a myth that we pay low taxes here in NYC. IT will also make destroy the value of real estate, since the real costs are always the taxes and maintenance fees.
The cost of living is cheaper in the Poconos because the land is cheaper and the commute to work is longer. However, recent stories filtering back to NYC have the poconos turning into a ghetto.
The cost of living is cheaper in the Poconos because the land is cheaper and the commute to work is longer. However, recent stories filtering back to NYC have the poconos turning into a ghetto.
If she is a dem, she should pay double. It's time these losers start paying their way.
You could work elsewhere if you dont like the idea of a commuter tax. I used to be against the commuter tax, til now.
2k a month is taxes along ? It won't be long now, this country is going to implode on itself. And, bigger is not better, we shall soon find out how true that statement is.
They vote the politicians in, they get the taxes they deserve. What can you say?
If she's a dem, then she is upset with the very thing that she promotes.
Typical of the left, they want large government and forced income transfer, however they want the transfer to flow their way alone.
Of course. No good dead goes unpunished.
then it badly needs to be flushed!
Please, NYC was always the most capitalistic city in the nation, dating back to the Dutch.
When I was a kid, we learned that the Big Difference between Capitalism and Communism was private ownership of land.
Big difference, ha ha! It's only a minor, semantic difference.
I see those areas becoming similar to Prince George's County in Maryland or Dekalb in Georgia, with lower middle and middle class people of color becoming dominant, as affluent whites and, to a certain extent Asians, dominating the I-70/I-80/GS Parkway corridor suburbs in New Jersey.
Of course, a persistant issue in the northeast is the refusal of lower middle class whites to even tolerate a sprinkling of blacks or latinos in their communities. This is why resegregation takes place quickly out in blue collar suburbia/exurbia.
That's what he's saying. That is an insanely high tax rate.
DURH! :D
I'm not necessarily talking about legit people of color -- but rather full blown ghetto. I could be wrong,since I haven't actually been up there -- but word has it that it's getting pretty bad and overwhelming local authorities. Again, I could be wrong.
I know from law enforcement agents in NYC and urban New Jersey that the Poconos are a popular place for local drug dealers to "lay low." North Carolina is another popular location for such activity, although the distance is a bit longer.
Yeah, I've heard the same thing -- also, they are setting up shop in these small towns. What this evolves into is anyone's guess.
Sometimes it's best just to burn it down/gut it beyond repair/salt the earth in spite and walk away.
Once the social security reform hits that brownstone will be worth a couple of million.
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