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In Brownstones, Taxes Suddenly Rise
The New York Times ^ | February 20, 2005 | JOSH BARBANEL

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: bloomberg; brownstone; disincentive; fixup; gentrification; harlem; meyghanhill; newyork; property; propertyrights; propertytax; rentcontrol; taxes; upgrade; upscale
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To: Alberta's Child

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.


41 posted on 02/21/2005 10:12:04 PM PST by Tarheel (Dogs come when they are called, cats take the message and get back to you later.)
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To: TBP

"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.


42 posted on 02/21/2005 10:29:16 PM PST by fooman (Get real with Kim Jung Mentally Ill about proliferation)
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To: Alberta's Child

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.


43 posted on 02/21/2005 10:31:34 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: Alberta's Child

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.


44 posted on 02/21/2005 10:31:42 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: Larry Lucido

If she is a dem, she should pay double. It's time these losers start paying their way.


45 posted on 02/21/2005 10:34:03 PM PST by fooman (Get real with Kim Jung Mentally Ill about proliferation)
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To: Alberta's Child

You could work elsewhere if you dont like the idea of a commuter tax. I used to be against the commuter tax, til now.


46 posted on 02/21/2005 10:41:24 PM PST by fooman (Get real with Kim Jung Mentally Ill about proliferation)
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To: TBP

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.


47 posted on 02/21/2005 10:42:22 PM PST by John Lenin
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To: TBP

They vote the politicians in, they get the taxes they deserve. What can you say?


48 posted on 02/21/2005 10:47:42 PM PST by lotusblos
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To: fooman
If she is a dem, she should pay double.

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.

49 posted on 02/21/2005 10:49:12 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: TBP
"We are being punished for fixing up the building and trying to improve the neighborhood."

Of course. No good dead goes unpunished.

50 posted on 02/21/2005 10:50:45 PM PST by farmfriend ( Congratulations. You are everything we've come to expect from years of government training.)
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To: Alberta's Child
I agree with you 100%, but if the city is going to be a Marxist toilet,

then it badly needs to be flushed!

51 posted on 02/21/2005 10:58:10 PM PST by upchuck ("If our nation be destroyed, it would be from the judiciary." ~ Thomas Jefferson)
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To: upchuck

Please, NYC was always the most capitalistic city in the nation, dating back to the Dutch.


52 posted on 02/21/2005 11:01:33 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: Alberta's Child

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.


53 posted on 02/21/2005 11:06:13 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: durasell
However, recent stories filtering back to NYC have the poconos turning into a ghetto. p> Why not? Developers, going crazy putting up cheaply constructed homes, found that the ideal clients for their $180,000 tract houses were those in the outer boroughs of NYC who had never owned a house in their lives and, thanks to low interest rates and special HUD-backed programs, could afford to do so. Since most of these folks are blacks and latinos, it should be no surprise that said communities should become more "colorful."

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.

54 posted on 02/21/2005 11:09:41 PM PST by Clemenza (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms: The Other Holy Trinity)
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To: Alberta's Child

That's what he's saying. That is an insanely high tax rate.

DURH! :D


55 posted on 02/21/2005 11:11:03 PM PST by Constantine XIII
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To: Clemenza

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.


56 posted on 02/21/2005 11:14:29 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: durasell

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.


57 posted on 02/21/2005 11:16:47 PM PST by Clemenza (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms: The Other Holy Trinity)
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To: Clemenza

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.


58 posted on 02/21/2005 11:18:58 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: drt1
It's double whammy. They probably can't 'Cash out' easily because the tax burden kills resale value. By the same token, if they stay, they're forced to rent whether they want to or not, just to make ends meet. All to fund bloated, corrupt Gov't and ineffective Schools.

Sometimes it's best just to burn it down/gut it beyond repair/salt the earth in spite and walk away.

59 posted on 02/21/2005 11:22:17 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: Paul C. Jesup

Once the social security reform hits that brownstone will be worth a couple of million.


60 posted on 02/21/2005 11:24:00 PM PST by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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