Posted on 12/10/2006 8:00:14 AM PST by Dubya
WHARTON — Something doesn't smell right around here.
It's not just the nearby egg farm with its chickens that backs to Dick Watson's home.
It's the 30 percent hike in his property tax appraisal. Watson appealed the higher appraisal in June, arguing the increase was unjustified because of the pervasive stench from the farm.
The Wharton County Appraisal Review Board, upon hearing that his property backed to the egg farm, lowered his appraisal by 28 percent.
Eighteen other homeowners who live near enough to the farm to be affected by the smell got similar reductions after appealing to the ARB.
That's when things turned ugly. In August, the county's chief appraiser, Tylene Gamble, sued the homeowners, who've since dubbed themselves the "Wharton 19."
'Creep' of taxes "It's mind-boggling to exercise your right as a citizen and then have your government put a gun to your head," says Tom Johnson, whose wife is one of the defendants in the case.
The tax reform championed during the last legislative session by Gov. Rick Perry reduced the property tax income of rural counties like Wharton. At the same time, Perry and others have decried "appraisal creep," the rising appraisals that threaten to sop up any savings from the tax cuts.
The case of the Wharton 19, though, stands out because of the county's aggressive tactics in raising appraisals.
Under state law, homeowners may appeal an appraisal review board's ruling to the district court. Counties can too, although it's rare for them to sue homeowners. Typically, they resort to legal action only in commercial disputes, says Matt Larson, a tax attorney with Baker Botts in Dallas.
"You don't see it happen very often, " he says. "The whole point behind the ARB is to prevent these kinds of disputes from having to go to court."
Prices not affected? Gamble acknowledges that her tactic is unusual, and she says she hated to do it.
The problem, she says, is that the recent home sales show the smell from the egg farms hasn't affected market prices for homes.
"In our opinion, there was no market evidence to suggest that an adjustment was warranted," she says. In other words, Gamble and her superiors at the appraisal district felt the ARB's decision was wrong because the appraisals are in line with market prices. She says that left her little choice other than suing the homeowners. "That's the only way we have" to address it, she says.
Gamble argues that allowing the ARB's decision to stand would have created an inequity in the tax base by granting a lower value to 19 homeowners out of hundreds spread across an area of a half dozen square miles or so. To single them out as the only properties affected by the smell is unrealistic and unfair, she argues.
She stresses that the issue involves only the 2006 tax year. It's possible the odor could become a market factor in the future.
In the meantime, homeowners like Watson say they're being punished simply because they appealed.
Since Gamble filed suit, six homeowners have settled. The case against the remaining 13 is pending.
Officials with Maxim Production Co., which operates the farm, didn't return my phone calls. Everyone involved in the lawsuit, though, seems to agree that the farm produces an unpleasant odor.
"This is not a disagreement about whether it smells out there," Gamble says. "They do have odor. It smells."
The question is whether that odor is affecting home prices. Watson and other members of the Wharton 19 argue that it does.
If Gamble prevails, the ARB and the appeals process will be rendered moot, Johnson says.
Home marketability Johnson says arguing that the stench from chicken feces and the flies that come with it doesn't affect the marketability of a home defies common sense. Johnson, by the way, is a real estate agent, so he knows something about selling homes.
Watson, who moved here from San Antonio a year ago when he retired, says the odor from the farm grew worse with the warmer temperatures in the spring and summer. He re-insulated his house, trying to seal it from the outside air.
He and his wife considered moving back to San Antonio, but they like their neighbors and the small town life they've found in retirement.
Out of the question Besides, Watson says, selling the house is out of the question. Given the smell, "how many people are going to want to buy it?"
Johnson says he would gladly pay more in taxes if he didn't have to live with the farm's odor. If the county has its way, though, he and the rest of the Wharton 19 will get both the smell and the higher taxes.
That's what really stinks.
Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at loren.steffy@chron.com. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/.
Property tax is confiscating your property a little at a time. If the tax is 5%, then it confiscates your property over a 20 year period.
You get the upkeep, maintenance, insurance, snow shoveling and leaf raking, not the govmnt.
Actually, property tax operates under the theory that the government owns the land and you are in fact renting it from them for an annual fee.
In Britain, all of the land is owned by the Crown. Therefore, they don't have property tax -- they have "rates." Rates is a levy paid by the "occupier" and not the "owner." This may seem like a subtle difference, but it is significant enough that your rates are not deductible from your US income tax (because there is no US equivalent).
Greedy bureaucrat alert.
Please tell me where this great increase in property values in the Metroplex is supposed to be? I just listed my house and I am going to have to sell it for less than I bought it because there is so much new housing that I am competing with. Why buy a used house when you can buy a new one? I am certainly paying taxes on more house than I can sell it for.
$450/month in taxes or the government takes your home.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's a $450 **RENT** bill from your landlord, the government! Hey!,,,,and Silly you thought you "owned" the government's house.
Exactly. People who think that they own their land... don't pay the bill that the government sends you each year and see if you still "own" it next year.
Expect the taxaholics to say that the children will not have toilet paper or school books or pencils if a Texas Prop 13 passes, they told those tales out here when Prop 13 passed and it didn't happen. Why should Texas homeowners be taxed to death to pay for the hordes of illegals exploiting their public schools and hospitals?
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