Caitlin Emma Photo
Mayor John DeStefano heard tales of woe Wednesday night from East Rockers like Karen, who said she and her retired fiance don’t have the money in these hard times to pay a big new tax bill.
“I’m heartsick about it,” said Karen, who declined to give her last name. “I feel like we’re being pushed out of our homes.”
At a community meeting at Wilbur Cross High School, DeStefano heard Karen’s story and others bracing for a citywide property revaluation that turns out to be sending the bulk of tax hikes to their neighborhood. Some East Rockers face tax hikes as high as $10,000 unless the city finds a solution that doesn’t pass the bill to other neighborhoods.
The mayor has proposed a “Homeowner’s Fairness Initiative” that would soften the blow for those hardest hit, especially in East Rock.
The majority of New Haveners saw their property values drop along with their prospective tax bills during this year’s property revaluation. Others, particularly the East Rock neighborhood, saw staggering increases.
Jeanne Musto said she already pays four times as much in property taxes as her son, who lives in the University of Pennsylvania district of Philadelphia. She also pays twice as much as her other son, who lives in Boston. She said the mayor did a good job explaining his idea at Wednesday night’s meeting, but she worries that New Haven will run up against Connecticut’s property tax-dependent structure in trying to work out any solution.
“I thought it was helpful,” she said. “He seems to be on everyone’s side. But we need to work for change in the state. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania just seem to do things differently.”
DeStefano broke down his proposed new $486.8 million city budget and the property revaluation quandary before he introduced his plan. The Homeowner’s Fairness Initiative, which would require approval from the state legislature, would phase in new property values over the next five years. But instead of a city-wide phase-in, it would not apply to all city properties. Only owner-occupied residential properties that saw an increase in value, like those in East Rock, would get phased in.
The problem is that the suburban-dominated state legislature isn’t guaranteed to approve it.
“It’s not necessarily clear that the state will agree to do this,” DeStefano said. “I don’t have a vote in the Connecticut General Assembly, and people don’t necessarily listen to me in the Connecticut General Assembly.”
Others asked: If the General Assembly doesn’t approve the idea, how else can the city alleviate the burden?
DeStefano said the city could try to get the state to invest more money in its PILOT grants, or the Payment in Lieu of Taxes, that reimburse cities for tax-exempt property such as colleges and not-for-profits. But afterthe tax increase in Gov. Dannel Malloy’s latest budget, DeStefano said, he doesn’t expect bigger PILOT payments to come to New Haven any time soon.
One attendee said she lives on Edgehill Road and has seen a lot of “for sale” signs in her neighborhood.
“Are you worried that the hike in property taxes will chase people out of the neighborhood?” she asked.
“Yes,” DeStefano said. The problem boils down to a fundamental problem with Connecticut’s tax structure, he said.
Still others asked: Can the city tax the research and intellectual property coming out of Yale University? Can it rely on regionalization of city and suburban government services? Again, probably not, DeStefano said.
“It happens in other cities this way,” he said. “You can’t change the wholesale property tax system in this state.”
East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker said he supports the mayor’s “Fairness” Initiative as the best option the city has at the moment. He said one of his constituents recently called him to say she had just lost her job. Without a phase-in, her taxes will go up about $4,000. She can’t afford it.
“I think we can talk about how the state is unfair until the cows come home,” he said. “One thing we can control is the budget. Another thing we can kind of control is this phase in. I think it’s the most we can do to maximize happiness.”