Trees Fall; Will Tax BIlls?

As torrential rain pounded the roof in a timely echo of the May 2018 tornado, northern Hamden residents packed into the West Woods Elementary cafeteria Wednesday evening to ask whether the damage the storm caused will be reflected in their next tax bill.

The answer: for most, not in the one that will come out this July, but probably in the one after that. It will depend on the next revaluation of properties, which will take place either this year or in 2020.

Around 100 people gathered to hear what Town Assessor John Gelati had to say about assessing their homes after the storm.

Gelati explained that state statute requires a revaluation of properties every five years, and that Hamden is up for a statistical revaluation (which would not include a full inspection) in 2020. If Mayor Curt Leng decides it’s warranted, he can initiate the revaluation a year earlier so that it would take place Oct. 1, 2019.

On May 15, 2018, a tornado ripped through northern Hamden, leaving swaths of downed trees and damaged houses, and closing Sleeping Giant State Park, which still has yet to reopen.

For over a year now, residents have been repairing the damage on their houses and removing trees from their yards. Many still have hundreds of downed trees, and no means or money to remove them.

With the mill rate inching close to 50 this year, residents said they don’t think they should have to pay such high taxes now that their property values have been depreciated by storm damage.

While some residents did experience damage to their homes, trees are the root of most residents’ problems. Downed trees are not covered by insurance, and are not factored directly into home assessments. Nonetheless, those trees affect the value of properties, residents said.

“As a real estate agent in the area,” said Kathy Hoyt, who lives in Hamden, ​“I can tell you, it has affected values.” Damage to trees, she said, ​“does detract from the value of the house.”

(Read a previous article about the complications one resident has faced in clearing the trees from her property here).

Value Of Trees

Insurance will pay for damage inflicted directly on houses, but those who were lucky enough to have trees miss their houses are out of luck when it comes to insurance. They have had to pay for tree removal on their own, which for many has meant leaving the property in disarray.

And on top of the cost of removing trees, there is the property devaluation that their destruction may have caused.

Residents that had extensive damage to houses have been able to get their properties revalued, and will see the revaluation reflected in their next tax bill. Those that only have downed trees, however, have not had the option of a spot appraisal.

“Certainly you can send me a letter or come in to speak with me, that would be fine, and I certainly would make a note of that on your property record card,” Gelati told one resident who had asked about a reappraisal on his property.

“But in terms of being able to change the value just simply because of that at this point … you can’t do really spot appraisal in that situation,” he said of cases where trees are down but houses sustained no damage. ​“And it’s a dilemma, and I’m not suggesting that it isn’t, and I’m not in any way marginalizing the harm that’s been done to you.”

Gelati said that those residents will have to wait until the next mass revaluation. 

Trees, he explained, are ​“not specifically valued in a cost analysis.”

When the town assesses a residential single-family home, Gelati explained, it has two ways of determining value. One uses an estimation of the cost of reproduction of the house, with the value of the land added, and the other uses comparisons to the values of similar homes that have recently been on the market. Trees are not specific factors in either of those methods of assessing the value of a property.

Yet, as many residents made clear, trees still have value.

Bill Luby is trying to sell a hundred-year-old American Chestnut log cabin on West Woods Road. He said there are still over 300 trees down on the property, though the storm inflicted no damage on the house itself. ​“Do you think that affects the value of the property?” he asked. “’Cause no one can buy it. You can’t walk the property. It’s physically dangerous.”

Luby first listed the property before the storm. According to Zillow, it was listed at $950,000 in 2017. Now, it’s listed at $499,000. Last year, he said, he still paid $14,000 in taxes on the property.

When Luby gets his next tax bill, it will probably be the same as last year’s. If Leng decides to do a revaluation in 2019, however, the bill he (or whoever buys the property) sees could decrease. And the trees could be a factor.

Though trees are not specifically valued in assessments, said Gelati, in so far as trees are considered an amenity to a property, ​“just like a beautiful lawn can be an amenity to a property, they constitute what is frequently referred to as curb appeal. In consideration of the storm damage in the next revaluation, they may very well be reflected in the land value.”

Market sales, he said, will likely reflect the downed trees, in turn lowering the assessed values that market-based assessments will produce. The tornado, he said, probably affected the values of properties all over the West Woods area — even those that did not have direct damage.

“The result may be that in order to create equity between the assessment of properties… there may be some adjustment factor,” he said. That factor could be applied either to the entire neighborhood, or to individual houses with particular damage, or both.

The neighborhoods that assessors use to determine home values are not necessarily the same as the actual neighborhoods of a town, such as West Woods or Spring Glen.

“Neighborhoods are defined to reflect properties that have similar market responses,” Gelati explained.

Leng will have to make a decision about whether to move the next revaluation up to 2019. ​“I’m leaning that way,” he told the Independent. ​“Many arguments are being made that are making me feel that would be the most equitable thing to do for the town.”

My House Was Condemned. Why Did I Pay Full Taxes?

When neighbors went by Melissa Blount’s house as they ventured out onto Still hill Road to see the damage after the tornado had passed, they stopped, gave her their phone numbers, and told her to call if she needed anything. A tree had fallen into her bathroom, splitting the ranch-style house in two.

On May 31, she received a letter from the town informing her that her house was unsafe to inhabit.

“Like no shit. The tree came through my home,” he recalled.

She has spent the last year living in an apartment and fighting insurance tooth and nail to pay for the damage. Still, when she saw her tax bill last year, nothing had changed. She paid almost $7,000 in taxes, as she had the year before.

She recently moved back into the house, but there is still extensive damage to the property. ​“It’s livable now,” she said. ​“Everything is new, but the backyard is still a mess.” She said there are still uprooted trees that have left large holes in the ground. She said she doesn’t use the yard for fear that her granddaughter or dog will fall into one of those holes. It would cost $800-$1,000 each to remove them, she said.

Gelati explained that homeowners who still paid full taxes on their condemned houses last year were paying taxes based on the previous year’s assessment. He revalued their homes on Oct. 1, 2018, and he said that this year’s tax bill will reflect the revaluation. He said that in total, he had lowered property values by about half a million dollars between the approximately-25 houses that got revaluations because of damage.

Some residents asked whether their rebuilt homes would incur higher taxes because of the updates they had gotten as a part of the repairs.

“Now are you going to raise my taxes because I have new windows, new siding?” asked Megan Jermain.

Gelati replied that he is well aware of the reason Jermain’s house has new windows and siding, and that he will not increase taxes because of new elements on houses that were a result of storm damage.

Gelati said that he has done all he can do to change residents’ assessments after the storm. He said that if people have questions or concerns about their properties, they should come to him and if law permits, he will do what he can.