| Author |
Message |
    
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 2:51 pm: |     |
Nil: You didn't need bias, just common sense to see that it was going to happen. I first heard that there would be a reval at least 18 months ago (I think it was mentioned at a town committee meeting) and even then it was obvious that the people on the hill would get "socked." The most amazing thing about this whole episode is the surprise among such people that their property taxes, directly proportional to their share of property values, would go up a lot. |
Nilmiester
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 4:03 pm: | |
Lseltzer - Who caused the crazy numbers on the "hill" in the first place? Ask any old time Maplewoodian, this disparity only recently occurred, not something going on since 1981. It is the recent people moving into town who insist on living on the hill, having bidding wars and driving up the price of that whole area! The same people who love this town and it's diversity choose to live in an area of town that is not so diverse. I think they should pay their fair share on their $500K or $600K house, they caused it. I don't know about $900K in Maplewood, maybe just the Frank Lloyd Wright house but my mention of my friends conversation with his evaluator was the gleeful attitude he had about them paying more but hey, maybe he likes his job! |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 4:16 pm: | |
Nilmiester, It seems to me that that the increasing valuation gap between neighborhoods within Maplewood highlights a point made by one speaker last night. During the last 10 years, the economic boom has not benefitted all Americans equally. For that reason, we have some people spending $500,000 on homes in one end of town while elsewhere, perfectly decent homes priced in the $100-$200K ranges aren't moving nearly as well. |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 4:43 pm: | |
Nil, as one of the newer (9 years) residents who chose Maplewood for its diversity among other things I'd like to remind you that I'm in one of the homes near the Irvington border. You know, the street that keeps getting mentioned with 2 and 3 year vacancies, listing prices of 63K to 150K? Nope, haven't seen a bidding war over here yet. While I wouldn't mind having the money to live "on the hill", clearly that's not my priority in life. Good for the folks who can, may they have happiness to go along with their economic good fortune. Having a good community to raise my kid in where my neighbors don't freak over an interracial gay couple with an internationally adopted child is my priority. So Maplewood suits this working class couple just fine, thank you.
Don't blame the newbies or the easties or the westies or the people with kids or the people without kids or the NY commuters or the local dems or the republicans. Why blame anyone, in fact? Who in Maplewood wanted this fiasco to happen? Let's start dealing with the situation at hand. Get the corrections done on the outrageous errors and set the new rate and let's move forward together as a town.
Let's get serious, though, about dealing with Trenton and our elected officials in the state about funding school budgets from property taxes. Someone from Maplewood should nominate poor Florio. The man knew what he was talking about and got slaughtered by short-sighted people whose wallets were embedded in their optic nerves.
Bacata |
Mtierney
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 5:22 pm: | |
Kathy: "Limited resources"? Why for heavens sake when we have a $63M budget for less than 6000 students!! Somebody better start checking!Nakaille: Please don't dig up Florio! He killed himself when he was caught lying days after taking office. He pushed for the highest tax increase in NJ history after running on a no-new tax campaign. Not for nothing is he despised by dems and republicans alike. |
Bshears
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 5:30 pm: | |
You would do better if you took his advice, and asked any old time Maplewoodian about that hill. Nilmeister has hit it right on the money, but being so new to town, you just wouldn't understand.
Good luck in Trenton! |
Kestrel
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 5:54 pm: | |
Mtierney: Your comments on Florio are well taken, BUT - so many politicians promise tax cuts or no increases to get elected, and some, like Whitman actually do cut taxes - However, in view of just how Whitman achieved her tax cuts, I cannot see how any of us benefited from them in the long run. Seems to me we either pay now, or pay a lot more later!
BTW, I asked one of the Re-val persons why (he thought) property re-assessments were not updated more frequently, so that such big disparities between assessments and market values don't get so skewed. His answer: POLITICS |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 6:12 pm: | |
I wonder it the property tax method of raising revenue will start to come unraveled as rates continue to increase. As rates increase, it becomes more and more worthwhile for homeowners to challenge the process and at some point in time the money spent collecting the revenues becomes unsustainable.
In addition, it seems that property taxes are unfair no matter how thorough and frequent the revaluations because you don't really know the value of your home until you try to sell it. Most other taxes (income tax, sales tax) are relatively unambiguous in regard to exactly what your tax should be. This vagueness in knowing the exact value of a home amounts to a lot of money given Maplewood tax rates. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 8:13 am: | |
Nil: It's not that recent. I moved here in 95 and there was a large disparity at the time. Not as large as now, but it sure looked to me like there was a premium for living up there. And plenty of people mentioned the east/west thing to me at the time. Those who are saying they never heard of this before probably never go anywhere near Springfield Ave in the normal course of events, let along the back streets there. This phenomenon is recent in a sense, but it's a lot older than the last couple of years. |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 8:59 am: | |
I agree with Lseltzer. The disparity has to date back to the boom market of 1986-87 which lasted until the stock market crashed in 1987. At that time, I think homes along Kendall Ave, for example, more than doubled in selling price while homes in the Hilton area were probably flat. |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 9:29 am: | |
Millburn received more state education aid. But Maplewood-S.O. didn't. This information was in the Star Ledger this morning. Does anybody understand the politics or arithmetic here? I would have thought that MSO needs the money more than Millburn. |
Bobk
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 10:17 am: | |
The discrepancy between neighborhood values has been with us for a long time. I was here for the 1981 Reval and lived in what was then called the Clinton neighborhood. Now I guess, with this insane east/west thing you would call it the middle east area. Watch out for wild camals.
Anyway, back on topic, I questioned my assessment informally because it seemed high in relationship to what we had paid for our house two years previously and was informed by the assessor that neighborhood wasn't the primary determinate in fixing the assessments since all Maplewoodians enjoyed the same level of service. Since my assessment wasn't that far off I didn't make a formal appeal.
My mistake. My new tax bill was about 25% higher than the old. The 1981 assessment seemed to start the trend that we are now faced with.
Now I live on the hill............... |
Nilmiester
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 10:21 am: | |
Who did the reval in 1981 then? No one even blinked at the time. |
Euclidean
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 11:45 am: | |
Nilmiester, As property taxes continue to rise, they will increasingly come under attack, I would think. I don't know what the assessments were in 1981, but I would imagine they were far less eye-catching than the 5K-15K assessments homeowners must now pay. |
Bobk
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 12:51 pm: | |
I believe the firm that did the 1981 reval was RPA or something like that. They were (are) located in Cinamisson (spelling?)
Just for fun I will share the following since my wife was able to pull out the file we had from when we bought the house in question.
We bought in late 1979 for $60,000. The taxes were just under $2,000 per year. Based on the tax rate at that time the assessed value was in the low $20,000s, which leads me to believe that the previous reval had been in the 1950s. Anyone have any information on this?
The 1981 reval brought the assessed value up to $62,500. Not really unreasonable even though the early 1980s were not good times for residential real estate values. Remember those 14% one year ARM mortgages?
This resulted in around a 25% tax increase. This leads me to believe that a lot of people protested and got their assessments cut, but I don't really have any detail. A review of the News Record morgue might be interesting if someone has the time. Last time I checked, the News Record going back just about for ever was available on microfilm at the Baker St. library.
The real estate market improved and we sold the house for over $200,000 in 1988, which I admit was an obscene profit. The house with the new reval is assessed in the $270s which is well above the 370% or whatever average for residential. You can figure out the new taxes.
Sorry about getting carried away. I guess as you get older you get nostalgic. |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 5:28 pm: | |
Does anyone have any documentation on a public official getting elected using the platform of raising taxes???? Florio made big public relations mistake (he forgot to shut his mouth about taxes) before getting elected but it doesn't mean he didn't know what was needed. How can we get politicians to tell us what they really think if we heckle anyone who talks about the need for taxes? We force them to lie. Usually they remember to do it by omission. Florio screwed up on that one big time.
Right now there is an important thread about the quality of education in the South Orange Middle School. No extra-curricular activities to supplement the classroom learning. Serious problems. At the same time, folks all over town, enraged about property taxes, are talking about trimming the school budget. I don't think you can have it both ways. Experienced teachers cost more, they should. Who here doesn't think their work is worth more as they've become more experienced in it? Who would stay in a job with stagnant wages? (Besides social workers, I mean.  ) Smaller classes cost more both in terms of pupil to teacher ratio and additional classroom space. And NO HELP coming from Trenton. (Surprise, surprise, surprise!) What to do?
Bacata |
Lah
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 9:34 pm: | |
New Hampshire has no income tax and fairly low property taxes (at least compared to ours). How do they do it? The state owns a monopoly on the liquor business. I am not necessarily recommending this for Maplewood or New Jersey, but once we get past this reval, we really need to get creative and figure out some other way to get revenues in our coffers. Separately, we need to look at our expenses and make sure that they're in the areas that we think are necessary and important. |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 9:56 pm: | |
>>The state owns a monopoly on the liquor business.
Make sure to check this month's specials at http://www.state.nh.us/liquor/products_pricing/pl00.htm |
Eliz
| | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2001 - 10:14 am: | |
The more you drink the better your schools and roads - I like that! |
Tracks
| | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2001 - 2:38 pm: | |
Florio's biggest problem was Gov. Kean's lies about the state's finances. He said there was a surplus. There was a 1,400,000 deficit. Florio was left little choice unless he wanted to do what Whitman did.... increase the borrowing.
Florio put the budget into a position where Whitman could play with the numbers (decrease the income taxes, increase the property taxes). |
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