Message from the Mayor: Assessment Change, Building 52, Historical Society, Harvest Moon Ball, Voting
Posted on: November 3, 2016 - 10:25pm
Fellow Residents;
Various news items to cover, including news on the assessment roll, as well as a new exhibit by the Historical Society, a reminder on several events in the village, and details on the upcoming election.
Adopted Assessment Roll
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The Board of Trustees voted Tuesday night to give up its own village assessment roll by ceasing to be an assessing unit and allowing the Town to take over the assessing function, thereby adopting Greenburgh’s new assessment roll for the Village. This also involves giving up the need for an assessor as well as an attorney to represent us in new certiorari cases, and, finally, to run our own Board of Assessment Review. What does this mean for those in town who pay property taxes?
- Your assessment will now be the same as that which will be used to calculate your school, town and country taxes – a number recently recalculated in the Greenburgh reassessment process and closer to the market value of your house. Greenburgh will maintain this assessment roll and carry out periodic reassessments so it remains more closely related to reality – at least every five years. (For the next few years, they will be adjusting the roll to adjust for intelligence derived from market sales and iron out the worst of the inequities left from the reassessment process.) The number will be in today’s dollars and not those from 1960 as it was previously, requiring a factor to convert to today’s dollars.
- Your Village assessment and your previous Town assessments were two different numbers (and sometimes *very* different), and so it is hard to state authoritatively how this new assessment roll will affect your Village taxes (which constitute roughly 18% of your overall property taxes). Generally, if your Town and school taxes are going up, your Village taxes are likely to as well, and, conversely, if your Town and school taxes went down, likely so will your village taxes. But this can only be verified later next year when this new assessment roll is applied for the 2017 Town taxes.
- If you want to grieve your assessment, you will only have to do it once for your Village, Town, county and School taxes – but you will need to go to Greenburgh Town Hall to do so.
- You will only have to apply for any applicable exemptions once, rather than at both the Village and the Town, but you will need to go to Greenburgh Town Hall to do so.
- The Village will save approximately $40,000 in the annual expense of having to hire our own assessor and lawyer. We will also face fewer certiorari appeals in future years from commercial owners because the assessed value will be more in line with reality.
The Board took unanimous action understanding that this impacts residents - some positively and some negatively. It was a decision not taken lightly. One of the most important responsibilities of a Board is to provide oversight over Village finances. On the expense side, we have kept a tight budget and increases under the 2% tax cap for years now – and righted our fiscal ship, leaving us in a position now to invest in infrastructure improvements. But our responsibility also extends to oversight of the revenue side – and an assessment roll which more properly reflects the underlying value of real estate is the most equitable way to fairly allocate the tax burden. Our village assessment roll had, for a variety of reasons, long ago fallen out of line with the underlying actual property values. Greenburgh’s reassessment process, even for its flaws and issues, resulted in something closer in line with the underlying values and also reflects a commitment to keep that roll in line with reality. It is, simply, more equitable and adopting it was the only equitable decision.
In addition to the assessment roll, the Board reviewed certain exemptions shared by Greenburgh and Hastings that provide various categories of residents reductions in assessed value and lower taxes as a result. Both the Town and Village share an exemption for firefighters and ambulance corps volunteers. This will remain. The Village had an additional one – where firefighters and ambulance personnel could subtract $500 off their assessed value. This was a legacy exemption that had persisted though it should not have when the other exemption was put in place. It will be dropped. It represents a small loss – perhaps $35 a year for a resident currently enjoying this. There is also an exemption for seniors on limited incomes that is identical for both Greenburgh and Hastings. It will remain. Finally, the Town permits an exemption for veterans (a base for all war-time veterans with a further boost for those who served in combat). Hastings once offered this exemption, but it was discontinued in 1984 and only persists for those who enjoyed it at that time and are grandfathered in. There is enough complexity to this exemption that the Trustees asked the Village Manager to prepare a more detailed analysis so that we can better evaluate the impact before we discuss it further. Every exemption provides the target group with a benefit, but it is a zero-sum game where every dollar of benefit is covered by others not enjoying the benefit. Taxation policy always has this trade-off and we do not address these issues lightly, either, because they have a real impact. We need to determine these exemptions in the weeks ahead. There will be a couple of opportunities for public input as well.
Building 52 Next Steps
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After an exceedingly long wait, BP/Arco has gotten back a response from the EPA on the BP demolition proposal for Building 52. We are working to confirm DEC has no further comments. With that, this allows us to make a determination of significance, the next step in the State Environmental Quality Review process where the Board of Trustees will review all the information provided and make a determination whether the demolition as proposed, which includes a number of measures to mitigate potential impacts, will result in any potential significant adverse environmental impact. The Village’s consultants are still reviewing all the information, and the Board will then vote on a Negative Declaration of Environmental Significance. Additionally, assuming the Board passes a Negative Declaration under SEQRA, we will also be voting on the demolition permit itself. We expect both these votes to happen at the next meeting, on November 15th. All draft documentation should be posted on the Village website within the week.
After an exceedingly long wait, BP/Arco has gotten back a response from the EPA on the BP demolition proposal for Building 52. We are working to confirm DEC has no further comments. With that, this allows us to make a determination of significance, the next step in the State Environmental Quality Review process where the Board of Trustees will review all the information provided and make a determination whether the demolition as proposed, which includes a number of measures to mitigate potential impacts, will result in any potential significant adverse environmental impact. The Village’s consultants are still reviewing all the information, and the Board will then vote on a Negative Declaration of Environmental Significance. Additionally, assuming the Board passes a Negative Declaration under SEQRA, we will also be voting on the demolition permit itself. We expect both these votes to happen at the next meeting, on November 15th. All draft documentation should be posted on the Village website within the week.
Historical Society
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The Historical Society is opening a new exhibit this coming Sunday (*not* Saturday as described in the Enterprise), November 6th from 2 to 4 pm at the Cottage in Draper Park (go all the way up the road off Broadway that directs you to Draper Park. It is the large yellow structure with a telescope dome on the left). It’s called “Growing Hastings: The Early Years.” The Historical Society will be looking at how Hastings and its neighborhoods developed over time in a series of three exhibits. This first exhibit, which will be up until Fall of 2017, begins by covering what our area was like when Native Americans called it home, on through to 1899, when the Warburton Avenue Bridge was built. If you’re like me and could us a break (any break, PLEASE, any break) from the unrelenting horror of unrelenting election news, this is a nice way to do so that will leave you with a better sense of where you live.
Harvest Moon Ball, Saturday November 5th
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One of the nice traditions in this village, open to anyone, will be held at the High School Corcoran Gym from 7PM to 9:30. The very adept, award-winning High School band cranks out jazz, big band and funk standards and you dance. If you’re dance-impaired (like me – two left feet would be an understatement) there is free dance instruction from 6-6:45 before the band begins. There’s also finger food, desert, non-alcoholic drinks. Charming, classic fun. $10/seniors, $15/adults.
Voting
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The interminable and agonizing election season finally culminates in the big event on Tuesday. Polls are open from 6AM to 9PM. No ID is necessary. Go to your usual polling location. If you are new or voting for the first time, go HERE and a button in the middle of the page will lead you to a form that you complete which will tell you where your polling location is. Elections always elicit passion – and this one arguably more than most. Election signs should be respected and left in place. Ripping them up is a crime, but also unfair. Leave them be. It will all be over and they will soon be gone and this will be behind us.
The interminable and agonizing election season finally culminates in the big event on Tuesday. Polls are open from 6AM to 9PM. No ID is necessary. Go to your usual polling location. If you are new or voting for the first time, go HERE and a button in the middle of the page will lead you to a form that you complete which will tell you where your polling location is. Elections always elicit passion – and this one arguably more than most. Election signs should be respected and left in place. Ripping them up is a crime, but also unfair. Leave them be. It will all be over and they will soon be gone and this will be behind us.
All the best in this unusually warm, unbearably tense, and visually beautiful season. Breath deep and enjoy a fall worth enjoying.
Sincerely,
Peter Swiderski
Mayor