
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 27, 1990                   TAG: 9004300198
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ELECTED COUNCIL CAN HIDE BEHIND VALUE ASSESSORS

WHEN I LIVED in California and Proposition 14 was proposed to keep real-estate assessments at a fixed level, I was opposed. I was concerned that the schools would suffer.

Proposition 14 passed and keeps the assessed value at the level it is when it changes owners. This allows the elderly and persons on fixed incomes to stay in their homes without being taxed out, and the schools have improved.

After an increased assessment of 25 percent in the last two years, I appealed the assessment, but to no avail. Here my value is based on a house, in another neighborhood, similar to mine. Since it sold for X number of dollars, that makes mine the same.

Living near an "exclusive" neighborhood (Lakewood Colony) where someone is willing to pay $250,000 for the address penalizes me. The fact that houses bigger than mine and closer to me have sold for less seems not to matter.

In your editorial April 19, you mention inflation in 1989 was about 4.5 percent and that real-estate assessments increased 6 percent. How much have assessments on private homes increased in two years?

Coming from California I probably paid too much for my house initially, but if Proposition 14 were in effect here, we could have a tax rate of $1.44 and I would be paying less than I am now.

The Roanoke system allows a body that the citizens have no control over to raise assessments and keeps the elected council from having to jeopardize their elections by raising the tax rate. The system seems unfair to me.

\ SELENA PEDERSEN\ ROANOKE

by CNB