Cohousing-L Mailing List: Assessment

[Joel Plotkin (joel]

COHs:
Related to the construction costs, our community (Hundredfold Farm)  just
went through a property tax reassessment. We appealed our initial figures
which varied rather widely. We called for the assessments (Land and House)
to be the same with only minor deviations because:
     1. Our homes are mostly the same size (varies less than 100 sq. ft)
     2. we all own the same 1/14th share of the common land (75 acres
including the house footprint)
     3. Our land is zoned agricultural (lower tax rate), so all our land
shares should also get the lower land value.
We have a condominium (conforming to PA law) legal structure. Our houses
vary by number of rooms, number of bathrooms; some have 3 finished levels,
some have two, some one. ( according to the desire of the owners). These
were the factors we hoped the county would use to determine deviation from a
median house value.

We've had our hearing and are now awaiting the board's decision. Three years
ago, we were able to convince the county that our solar panels were
technically appliances and should not be part of the house's value.

Any other assessment stories?

Joel Plotkin
Hundredfold Farm Cohousing
Orrtanna, PA