| Welcome to the Cooperstown Crier |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
5-24-2007 It has been 20 years since the town has done a reval and in that time the level of commercial development in the route 28 corridor has grown tremendously along with property values. George Cade, who has been hired by the town to complete the reval, said this week that the upswing in commercial property values should switch the value base over to those commercial properties. A look at some of those parcels along route 28 which have been subject to commercial development illustrate Cade's comment. The almost 60 acres the Ingalls family sold to the Cooperstown Dreams Park in 2005 for $1,141,200 is currently assessed at $64,900. The 1.23 acre of land which is now home to DiMaggio's hot dog stand was vacant in 2003 when it was sold for $185,000. It's current assessment is $91,000. And the Dreams Park's original 62 acre parcel which is home to most, but not all of its buildings, is assessed at $957,200. "There will be some big changes," Cade said. "Commercial properties will be the biggest changes. They'll be in to see me. I imagine we'll get some court cases out of those." Cade said there are over 1,500 parcels in the town which he and his three associates Kassandra Cade, Lisa Davenport and Brian Pokorney will be collecting data on during the next few months. Property owners will be contacted so the exterior of all buildings can be measured and interior features recorded. With the cooperation of the property owner, the process should take only a short time. It is also an opportunity for property owners to ask questions about the process to help insure the information gathered is accurate, Cade said. The signature of the property owner or occupier will be required as proof of the appraiser’s inspection. The data collection portion of the reval began recently and Cade expects it to be completed by October. As part of the reval, town assessor Ferd Thering and Cade will compile schedules that cover building costs, land values and real estate sales so that pricing can be developed which accurately reflects current Hartwick values. Once the reval is complete and the new tax role has been adopted, the updated property assessments will first be applied to school taxes in September 2008 followed by town and county taxes in January 2009. If any questions arise during the project, contact the assessor’s office at 293-8153.
|
Copyright 2007, Cooperstown Crier, Cooperstown, NY All rights reserved