Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220552
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MARGARET CAMLIN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: COVINGTON LENGTH: Long
Some have begun a petition drive to nullify it, despite the fact that a court-appointed equalization board is meeting day and night to hear people's complaints and, in many cases, lower their assessments.
Why the uproar? City Manager David Dew said the assessments rose an average of 14 percent since 1986, which seems to him a reasonable increase in four years.
But in a city where a third of the population is 60 and older and many survive on modest fixed incomes, many people view the entire reassessment with suspicion.
"Homes haven't gone up," said businessman Donald Cole. "This is a depressed area; if anything, they've gone down. The value of property is going down because the demand is not there."
Cole, who owns a video rental store and sells welding supplies, is leading a petition drive that has gained about 1,000 signatures of people urging the city to set aside the reassessment.
Speaking for himself, Cole is not convinced that property values rose high enough to justify the appraisal of his ranch house on Greenlawn Avenue. It was assessed at $60,000, nearly double the last assessment of $32,000. He said he has done nothing to improve the home in 10 years.
Cole succeeded in getting the assessment lowered to $35,000. But he's not quitting the fight to overturn the entire reassessment.
The petitioners also want to force the city to hire a local assessor, rather than an out-of-towner, in the future. People have accused Robert Hansbrough, a Harrisonburg appraiser who conducted the reassessment, of importing property values from the booming Rockingham County area.
Cole and others say Hansbrough based his calculations primarily on Westvaco Corp.'s purchase of roughly 200 homes in the England Heights subdivision. Westvaco leveled the homes to expand its paper mill.
Hansbrough said he did not use any of the Westvaco purchases in his calculations because the prices the company paid were well above the market value.
Instead, he looked at sales of about 300 homes scattered around the city, such as a house on Riverview Drive that was assessed in 1986 for $51,915 and sold in 1989 for $60,000, or a house on Jackson Street that was assessed at $29,385 in 1986 but sold for $46,900 in 1989. Not all property assessments increased, however, and some even dropped slightly.
Of the move to set aside the reassessment, Hansbrough said: "I see no basis for it. But that's up to the city, and it's not up to me.
"Fourteen percent I don't feel is a drastic change," he said. "That's equal to a 3 1/2 percent change a year, which is a minimum increase in real-estate investments."
The city Board of Assessors, which disbanded in December, oversaw Hansbrough's work. Chairman David Wenke said that by late December "the list of people with complaints was more than we could handle."
"I'm disappointed that there's so many unhappy customers," Wenke said. "But it's one of the facts of life that real estate has appreciated over the years."
Cole and others have asked former state Del. Bill Wilson, a Covington lawyer, for advice. In his 27 years in law, Wilson said he has seen many reassessments and the "griping and grumbling" that go along with them.
"But this is the first time I've ever seen this much of a hue and cry from so many people from such varied backgrounds," Wilson said.
Wilson advised Cole and others to go before the equalization board "in a thoughtful way" as individuals, but to also form an organization. Organizing allows them to pool resources and information and to set the stage for a class-action suit, he said.
Business owners also have appealed to lower their assessments. Harrison Fridley, owner of Fridley's Pharmacy on Main Street, was shocked to find his assessment rose 30 percent. But after he met with the equalization board, the amount was reduced "to a more reasonable increase," he said.
James Loving Jr., owner of Loving Funeral Home, was outraged that the assessed value of his business jumped from $132,000 to $323,000. He scrutinized the appraiser's calculations and found glaring errors. He showed them to the equalization board, which agreed to a 25 percent increase instead.
"I feel like everybody that has a legitimate complaint, they can go before the board and receive equitable treatment," Loving said.
Dew said some of the appraisals that seem unusually high can be blamed on mistakes made during the 1986 reassessment.
But even modest increases are motivating some people to appear before the board of equalization. One of them was Mary Hanks, a 60-year-old widow who lives on East Prospect Street. The assessment on her home and patch of land rose from $30,500 to $34,500. This would have cost her an extra $34 per year at the current tax rate of 86 cents per $100.
The board lowered her assessment to $32,000. "But I'm still not satisfied, because I know real-estate value in this town has gone down," Hanks said.
Edward "Buck" Whiteside, one of the three equalization board members, would not give an estimate of the number of people the board has seen and the number of assessments it has reduced. "All I'm doing is trying to do a good job," he said.
The board will continue holding meetings at City Hall "until we see everyone who wants to see us," Whiteside said.
by CNB