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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992                   TAG: 9203110303
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

AIRPLANE TAXING METHOD MAY CHANGE AGAIN

Roanoke Commissioner of Revenue Jerome Howard said Tuesday he is willing to scrap a new method for taxing planes at Roanoke Regional Airport, one that has caused at least one company to move its plane to another field.

Because of a controversy over the change in the assessment procedure, which has caused tax bills on some planes to increase fivefold, Howard said he will go back to the old method if requested to do so.

City Council voted this week to ask City Manager Bob Herbert to meet with Howard to see if he will reconsider his decision on the assessment procedure.

Howard recently began assessing aircraft on the basis of fair-market value, the same method used for assessing automobiles. Previously, he used a depreciation system that reduced the planes' value to 20 percent of their cost after five years.

Meanwhile, a Federal Aviation Administration official said Tuesday that it is unlikely that the Roanoke airport risks losing its radar facilities, as Councilman James Harvey fears. Harvey said Monday that if the number of landings and takeoffs drops substantially, the radar could be in jeopardy.

"Based on the conditions we have now, I don't have any information that would lead me to believe that the radar facilities" could be lost, said Freddie Delbridge, a supervisor in the airport's control tower.

by CNB