Laura Glesby photo
Acting Assessor Pullen at Monday's Finance meeting.
More than 56 percent of real estate value throughout the city — or $10,132,855,885 in total — cannot be taxed this year.
Acting City Assessor Alexzander Pullen presented that finding to the Board of Alders Finance Committee on Monday evening as part of an update on the 2024 Grand List.
The City Hall meeting came less than two weeks after Mayor Justin Elicker officially proposed a $703.7 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2024 – 25 (FY25), which, if approved by the alders, would take effect on July 1.
Pullen broke down the city’s property and motor vehicle tax base to alders — including the net taxable real estate grand list, which is currently valued at a total of $7,709,148,919. And he shared that New Haven real estate worth a total of $10,132,855,885 is tax-exempt. That means that 56.79 percent of all real estate value across New Haven is currently off the tax rolls.
In comparison, last year, taxable real estate value was worth $7,761,587,276 and non-taxable real estate value was worth $10,008,373,997, meaning that a total of 56.32 percent of all city real estate value was not taxed.
Finance Committee Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand asked Pullen how much of that non-taxable property value belongs to Yale University and Yale New Haven Health.
Pullen responded that the university and the hospital system collectively own 43.4 percent of that tax-ineligible property, or a combined total of around $4.3 billion in tax-exempt real estate value.
The rest is a combination of government and nonprofit-owned real estate, as well as recently constructed buildings for which taxes have been deferred or adjusted in agreements with the city.
The taxable portion of the grand list — including real estate, personal property, and motor vehicles — is currently $9,044,330,907. That represents a slight decrease, of 0.39 percent, from last year’s net taxable grand list $9,079,906,103.
The change is “such a small amount that I like to use the word ‘stable,’” said City Budget Director Shannon McCue, “but it does have an impact.”
Even as new construction continues across the city, those buildings are not immediately taxable at their full post-development values, thanks to New Haven’s tax assessment deferral program. There are often further tax abatements or deferrals laid out in agreements with the city for new developments.
“A new property would have to have a value of over $128 million to swing the grand list by 1 percent,” Pullen said.
Pullen said that the latest grand list saw an increase of about $82 million from declining or ending tax breaks for new developments.
However, he said, that revenue was offset in part by Yale’s purchase of the biotech building at 300 George St., which removed $56 million from the grand list. (Yale will pay the equivalent of full taxes on that property to the city in a separate contribution for the next three years, and then 10 percent less each year for the next decade, per a city-Yale agreement approved in 2022.)
The grand list also took a hit from appeals of the 2021 property revaluation that resulted in decreased assessments for some property owners, Pullen said.
Laura Glesby File Photo
The taxable dine with the tax-exempt, at a Yale-funded Center for Inclusive Growth meetup in February.