 Properties to take up, starting with Nat Froschmann. And I'll start out at the very beginning of the meeting rather than doing it with every case. Everyone who's going to be testifying about any appeal tonight, please raise your hand. Deuce, and that includes you and me. We solemnly affirm, subject to the pains and penalties of perjury, the testimony you're about to give will be the truth. The whole truth, nothing of the truth. All right. Thank you. Okay, so everybody should have their packets in front of them. In the first place, we're going to discuss the seven Hillside Avenue. Reappraise the contract, set an initial value of $172,000. Property owner attended the informal and formal grievance. No changes were made. The home is on a sloping .08 acre lot on Hillside Ave. When you get to the record cards, you will notice that there is a topography adjustment made. So there's a negative adjustment made to the land for the slope. Neighborhood is considered an early fair neighborhood. The dwelling itself is built around 1900 and is rated as fair condition. We have that measured as 1,012 square feet of finish above grade. One full bathroom, two bedrooms. The home is rated as an average quality for a build. For recompairable sales, these three sales have similar challenges as far as access or condition. As you can see, the assessment of the subject property in fair condition is $169 per square foot. That does fall a little bit above the first two due to the size difference. You'll notice that the subject property is quite a bit smaller than the first two. So therefore it's going to be a higher dollar per square foot. The third one I feel is the best comparison as far as condition, location, and size. Equity comparison is on the next page. Neighboring properties at 10 and 12 hills are superior in condition, but also bigger in size. Sixth Cliff Street is also similarly challenged as far as access. So the $169 per square foot assessed value falls within the three equity comparisons. And then on the back you'll have the record card and you'll see that the appraisal company did get into the home and inspect it. And on that same side of the Patriot symbol, the red P up in the right-hand corner, you'll see the topography adjustment down at the bottom for the slope of the land. And on the back side you'll see the fair condition of the property. Any questions on that one? Okay. Boris Harris. Appreciate the opportunity to come before this group and in general appreciate that citizens in Montpelier and in Vermont have this ability to meet face-to-face. Thank you. I think many of you had a chance to read the letter that I wrote to John Odom in August 30th. I want to add some detail to that letter, just a little detail to that letter. Before I do that, I'd like to, I may have missed something, but I didn't get the properties with which this is being compared. This is the first time I've seen this material. Is that what's happening? Yeah. This is what is yours. And each witness probably should be given one of these, right? That's yours. So yeah, so you can see those properties on the front page are the ones, the comparable series that this is based on. I may be missing something. Yeah, those things have not been there with your case. Those are different. Those are for the next people. I gave you a full bundle by accident. Yours was just a one. You've got the one in there. These are for others. This is not for me. This is not having to do with my property. This is right. These are not the properties to which my property was compared. They are not only the one that you're holding. I'm sorry. Okay. Let me readdress my question, sir. Is this the comparison sheet with the other properties? On the front, on the very front page, there's three. Your property's down here at the bottom. And then these are the three sales that we're comparing it to. And the addresses on the far left. And that came to me early. I don't know if you've got that. I don't know. I get things out a couple of days in advance. I don't know if they have any emails for that. But it's only formally presented here. Okay. It strikes me that it would have, in the best of all possible worlds, which is not the world we live in, it might have been helpful to me to visit the properties to which my house was compared. We can tell you that after you're done with your presentation, we will appoint a three-person committee to visit your property. Okay. And to look at other properties that are comparable. Is it, would it be an appropriate move for me to actually pay a visit to those comparable properties to see how the comparisons stack up? Or does that seem to be not a step that would be recommended? What committee will do that? But I don't think it adds much. Would it add anything for you to do it? My sort of interest is to see whether the comparables are in fact comparables. That was why I asked the question. Sure. You wouldn't mind if I walked by those properties? No. Okay. And all that information is on the assessor page on the city's website too, so you can look at the records that we have for all those sales. Okay. I am a little concerned about the steepness of the hill that is the access point to my property. Not just the fact that it is a hill, but that, you know, what is the grade? What is the actual steepness of that hill? And I will be trying to figure out how that works out in relationship to the properties that are comparable. The roadway itself leading up to my house, I am not a professional judge of roadway safety, but I do note, as a property owner, just as a property owner with no special training, I do note that that road is coming apart, and it is both, curiously enough, it is both a roadway and a walkway, and it leads to a set of steps that were built by the city of Mount Clear that leads people upstairs to what is known as Waverly and Cliff Street, and there are people using that, using the stairs and using the roadway, the single lane roadway down, down to steep path and all weathers and up, and that roadway is coming apart. And the stairs, I am not again an expert on the stairs, but I have taken a look at the stairs and I have had some comment come to me from people who have used the stairs to say to me that they hope that somebody will look at the stairs as to safety, as to their condition, as to the wear and tear. I am going to speak to my situation, and I don't think my situation is unique. I have a Social Security check and I have another check that was a bequest, essentially a bequest from my aunt, but I got the bequest before she died. It is called an annuity. I should jump in here and say that we are not considered, we don't have the power to consider the end taxpayer's ability to pay as part of this appeal. It is strictly based on the value of the property. So you really don't need to go into what your income is. Okay. Mary. May, there is a process, a separate process that you can engage in that has to do with ability to pay, but that is just not what we are able to do or consider here tonight. All we can look at is, did the assessor get it right in what can you tell us about his evaluation of the property, not issues outside of that? Yeah, you could ask for an abatement if you are concerned about your ability to pay. We have a bunch of those requests and we will be starting a little later after these, but yeah, that would be the process for ability to pay. How would I know that if we hadn't had this conversation? Does everybody know that? Probably not. There are some people who approached me and spoke to me and were clearly a little confused and I would direct them to one or the other. Okay. Or sometimes both. Let me just, by the way, you haven't also asked me to, I want to be very much a follower of your rules and I'm not trying to be defiant. No. But I will say that it would have been helpful in your introductory materials to have stated that comments about income, comments about, are not taken up in this meeting. I would have, I'm a little embarrassed that I raised those issues. Well, no need to be. Yeah, and that's my fault. No, no, what do you say? I'm not trying to find fault. I'm trying to, I'm trying to respond to the situation. But so the question really for tonight is the assessor has come to a certain value and it's based on the qualities, the characteristics of your property including the location, the neighborhood, the construction, the area, all that. And he's set forth certain properties that he considers to be comparable that have been sold recently. And so this is an opportunity for you to point out why you think he got it wrong in some way. I would not suggest to the assessor that he got it wrong because I am not an assessor. I've not been trained as assessor. I can only tell you how it strikes me and so I don't I don't serve, challenge you in your professional abilities. I do think it would be helpful for other citizens who may be affected financially by these changes to know that there's an abatement. I didn't know there was an abatement. I think it's great there is one. I guess I'm going to conclude my testimony with thanking each of you for joining me and others for this discussion and for being so forthcoming as you have been. I thank you a lot and I know this these hearings come at a time when the city is facing other problems and I'm acutely aware of that. And I thank you all for your service to me in the city. Don't go away. I thank you for coming in and I see that we have at least one question. You're on record in your letter of appeal of saying that you think the property is too high based on the age, location and condition of the property and so we'll appoint a committee and they'll look at those items but their members of the board may have questions for you. Have a good take. Can you... You mentioned the road deteriorating. Can you drive to your house? One car can drive to my house, yes. And there's one parking space? There's one parking space and when you have to turn around you have to use part of the parking space of your neighbor and you know we're friends so that's not a problem. In other words, I have to back up into my neighbor's parking space in order to make the turn to go down the hill. The road itself is passable. Pardon? You can get up and down the road to your house. Yes. Mary, were you... No, I think I... Okay. Anyone else have any questions? Okay. Yes, Sal. I have a question actually for Marty. Since the home was graded C, it's an average but everywhere else it says fair to average? Those are different, right? Yes. So the C is for the quality of the build and fair is the condition of the property. I see. Okay. Yeah, Mary. So, and I appreciate you having had a chance to study what the assessor has said to us. I assume you saw what we call the card which is attached to that. And I'm just... Do you disagree with any of the information that he's presented? For example, is the number of bedrooms correct? The number of bathrooms correct? That sort of information. Yes. Correct. Yeah. And so you wouldn't argue with the assessment of the condition, et cetera? Well, I did put some information and I said they were estimates. I said, look, I need some attention to the roof. I called around a little bit about the roof. I can't say that the estimates are exact, but I did put in a number. The house needs to be painted. I called around to see what that would cost. I put that in as an estimate. Can you say you put that in? I don't think we have it in front of us. I don't have anything like that either. Pardon me. Well, we've had some... We've had... This is not the first... This is not the first exchange on this property. Yeah. And a lot of that should... If you look at the comments, we'll see that the... When the reappraising crew was there, they didn't make note of the dated nature of the house, the access issues. And that depreciation is where the... Where the condition issues will show up. The home does have higher than average depreciation. So this says there's a 41% depreciation based on physical condition. Yeah. There's one full bath. They're calling fair. So it's probably been 80s or 90s since it was updated. Same with the kitchen. The kitchen is rated as fair. So it's less than typical condition. Okay. So we... Can you do a commitment? Right in the back side, we see the picture. The one with the picture of the property here. Yeah. Yeah. Right here it can... Right in the middle of the page. I need an orange mark where it is. Oh, man. Turn it long ways. Oh. See the orange dot? Okay. Thanks. Okay. So we need a three person committee. The one here is the carry. Kim and Sal. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the committee will be in touch with you to arrange a time to get over that. Thank you. You, Sal, and Kerry. Thanks for coming in. I'm going to leave if that's okay. Oh, totally. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome to stay, but we don't make people stay. Thank you. Can't even want to miss out on this. Right. Next up, we have William McNamara. Take the seat. Yeah. Why don't you line up? 98 Cedar Hill Lane. The reappraisal contract has set an initial value of $3.1 million. Property owner did come to the informal meeting by phone and the formal agreements by phone as well. This is several buildings built in 1973. There are 36 total units with a total of 35,000 square feet. Bathroom, bedroom counts are shown here. 36 bathrooms, 20 half baths, 108 bedrooms. The buildings again are graded as C for average for quality, but they are in fair condition. So they have a little more than typical depreciation at 38%. There is a small office unit, a little small office unit which is given 45%. It's given a little higher appreciation. The reappraisal contractor did get into one building. We've got four sales to compare it to and we're breaking it down on a per unit price. The second one at 52 Northfield Street is most similar in condition. It is also rated as a fair condition. So you see that one sold at $91,000 per unit. The subject is assessed at $87,000 per unit at its current value. Any questions on that so far? Income approach on this project gives a value of $3.7 million as compared to the current assessment of $3.134 million. Did you get actual income and expense information from this taxpayer? We did, yes. These are obviously market derived. Their actual numbers are not included. The equity comparables, these are all slightly better in condition, but similar large projects and their assessments are between $95,000 and $125,000 per unit. The subject is assessed again at $87,000 per unit given its condition. Any questions of the assessor? Towards the end there is a little bit of information about the property itself. It was purchased back in 2005 for $2.5 million. It was listed for sale on October of 2019. Maybe it was a fishing expedition, but it was listed at $5.4 million but did not sell. Attached are the cards for... There's four cards on the property which will have the condition breakdown, the unit breakdown, bedrooms, square footage. Looks like one for each of the buildings. Yes. Any questions on that? Hey, Kim. I'm still considering that if you don't include property taxes as an expense. Correct. That's how we come up with the cap rate. It doesn't seem to make sense to me. That is an expense. It's then incorporated into the cap rate. So when you're doing an assessment, you've got to put a value on the property, how much the taxes are going to be, because you don't know what the taxes are going to be until the property value is set. Once the property taxes are figured out, it's then moved to the cap rate, usually raises the cap rate. So you do take it into account that way? Afterwards, yeah. But initially we're trying to find out what the value of it is before tax, before the tax rates are figured. Any other questions for the assessor? Mr. McNamara. I've lived here long enough that I still call this place October Lane. I too would like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I haven't seen these comps, but one thing that jumps out at me is the fact that they're all significantly smaller buildings. Seven units, nine units, ten units. This is 36 units. It's my understanding that in valuation, real estate valuation, that the larger the amount then based on a retail wholesale argument that the larger amount will knock down the dollars per unit and a smaller amount of units will be disproportionately higher. For example, if this had two and three families on here, the dollars per unit would have been $150,000 or something. So there aren't a lot of comparables, but I view these comparables as not significantly comparable, really. They're not apartment complexes. They're small buildings. I assembled a package and I brought three other copies of this package which I can hand out to whoever takes the case or I can give it to the assessor and he can hand it out in any way. But I put together one page that I feel has all the most relevant information. The prior assessment was $1,826,000. This assessment is $3,134,000. The percentage increase of the new assessment is almost 72%. The average from what I was able to calculate, the approximate average percentage of all city properties and their increases from the last reval to this one is 46%. So I think it's clearly disproportionate valuation, 72% versus 46%. It doesn't make too much sense to me. There's two main approaches, valuation approaches that are used. It's my understanding for these types of properties. One is the sales comparison approach. The other one, which is my understanding, is by far the most important approach is the income approach. And the income approach, as I've summarized it, starts off with the actual profit for the last three years. And in 2020, it was 214,000. I'm rounding these off. In 2021, it was 261,000. And in 2022, which is the year before the valuation date, it was 275,000. So the 2022 is the highest of the last three. This is the profit as computed under the questionnaire that the assessors give out. The profit isn't that really because there's financing on this property. There's a large mortgage and there's a lot of interest. So the profit is much, much smaller than this. But for valuation purposes, that doesn't include property taxes and mortgage interest, capital improvements. Those are the figures for the last three years, 214,000, 261,000, and 275,000. Would you do that slowly? Start that over again? Yeah. In 2020, the profit of 214,000, and 262,000, and 2,022,275,000. So the valuation date is April 1st of 2023. So we used the highest of the last three years as the profit to analyze with the capitalization rate based on the method that the assessor just described and explained. We were told that the base rate. So when you do the income approach, you take the profit and you divide it by the capitalization rate, and that equals the value. It's pretty straightforward. And so there's no, in my mind, there's no question whatsoever about these problems. By the way, I've also included in my package the tax return, the federal tax returns for the last three years, which are set up a little differently. But in the end, the numbers are the same. The income and expense statement that I've included in the package is based on the assessor's questionnaire. So we were told that the base capitalization rate was 9.3%. And that was a special capitalization rate. It was lower than the capitalization rate for other properties. Apparently the capitalization rate for other properties was 10%. But since multifamily has been a somewhat favored market sector, they brought it down to 9.3%. And the commercial tax rate, this property is assessed commercially, not residentially, even though it's apartments. The commercial tax rate that's going on right now, the 2023 to 2024 tax rate is 2.282%, 2.2082%. So to get the operative capitalization rate, you add together that 2.2 and the 9.3, and you come out with 11.5082. And that's the capitalization rate that, I believe, is being used to value all the other apartment properties in the city. So you take that 11.5%, and you divide it into the 275,000 of profits for last year, which is the highest of the three years. And it comes out to a little under 2.4 million. 2.4 million. And the assessor's current assessment is 3.139. A few more. So I think that's the strongest evidence for the valuation of this property. The sales approach, we hired an appraiser to look at all apartment sales in Vermont. You don't have to just stay within the city when you're coming up with properables. And we didn't use ones in Burlington because that's a whole different world. The values there are double what they are in the rest of the state, more or less. And the comparable, which I have as part of my package, comes out to an average of 62,000 a unit versus the 87,000 based on these smaller properties. And 62,000 a unit times 36 units is 2.2, a little less the sales approach, which I don't put a real lot of weight on. It's the income approach that's really, that has the most weight here. And the average of those two is 2.3 million as opposed to the 3.134. A couple of other things that are in my package and also on this summary sheet is, as regards the sales comparison approach, it should be noted that the extremely high commercial mortgage interest rates as of the valuation date of April 1st, 2023 had a significantly negative effect on the property's value as of that date. In fact, it may have been difficult to have sold the property as of that date at even a greatly reduced price. There's a freeze. There's properties aren't selling. I mean, anyone that knows what residential rates have done to the single family market, it's the same thing with commercial properties. They're just frozen. There's a question as to whether they can even sell. And so as of that date, with those interest rates, I think that it would have been difficult to sell this at a fair price. A couple of other things I brought along was what does this all mean to the tax bill? And prior to this year, the tax bill was 50,000, almost 58,000, 57,000, 819. This year, with this new valuation, it went up by $11,405 in one year to $69,224. This is a big property, but after all the expenses are paid, the mortgage, everything, there's not a real lot left over. And to have all of a sudden an extra $11,400 taken out of the proceeds every year, it's not really sustainable. I'll just point out to you what I said to the previous person too, which is that we're not addressing tax bills in these hearings. It's not part of what we get to consider at all. Okay. Lastly, I wanted to point out that after the property was purchased, the land was cut in half. It was subdivided into three different lots. Originally, it was about 16 acres, and now it's somewhere a little over 8 acres. So the property itself is only one half of the property that was originally purchased. The other two lots are separately taxed and insured. They just land, and we don't have a problem with those valuations. But this subject property is only one half of what was originally acquired. And I have three separate packages that it might make sense to give the three committee people that take this on, or you can handle it any way you want. Thanks, and we'll have the clerk take one so the clerk can get it out to all the members of the board. But thank you. Does anyone have any questions? Mary. You made a statement as to what you thought the value should be, and I didn't get it written down. Okay. I'm proposing $2,314,994, as is shown in the summary sheet. And how did you arrive at that? I, although in valuation, you don't necessarily average things, is my understanding. The fact is that the income approach came in at $2,393,094, a little under $2.4 million, and that the sales approach was $2,236, $895. So, again, averaging isn't necessarily the way it's done. Usually, that is my understanding, rely more, especially in this case, on the income approach, which would be about $2.4 million. But averaging the sales and the income approach brings it down to that $2.314,994. And that income approach, $2,393,094, $3,393,094. Right. That was arrived at by the capitalization approach of $11,508. That by dividing last year's documented profit before you consider property taxes, interest, or capital improvements, or depreciation. So that is not the number we have here. The number that I gave is 275,402. Okay. And if that's divided by the 11 and a half, then you get to the 24. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Mary. You mentioned that you looked at comps from me. Could you just give us some sense of the area that you looked at? Well, in a praise, I actually did this. Okay. Shelzer and Milbury, Williston, Springfield, Rutland, Menden, West Rutland, Randolph, Fairhaven, Colchester, Johnson, St. Albans, Williston. So nothing in, I didn't hear Central Vermont. I didn't hear Ferry, Waterbury. That's because they weren't available. Yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to get in my head what was looked at. And then I think I have a question for the assessor. Yeah. Go ahead. Anyone else have any questions for the taxpayer? I have a couple. When I first started representing people at October Lane, it was a section 23 project run by the State Housing Authority, although not owned by the State Housing Authority. And, but even after that, the use restrictions went away. I think it was still subsidized. And is that the nature of it now? Are there any subsidized? There was one for a long time, but he recently passed away. And so there are no section aids, as they're called. It's all market rate. It's all market rate. We get as much as the market will bear because we've got a lot of expenses up there, especially maintenance. It's 70. It's a 50, 60-year-old property. And there's things going wrong all the time. Okay, anyone else? Okay, Mary. I suggested that there was a different cap rate that we ought to be applying. And one, I'm assuming that they... I've missed a couple of meetings. I've missed conversations about the cap rate because we've done... I don't understand how $9.35 versus $11.58. These are market-derived from the sales study that the appraisal contract did for the reappraisal. This is typical of what they were finding for larger commercial properties. It's 9.3 to 9.5, some size 10. But to answer your question, I don't think... I've been thinking that we should have a night where we have a seminar on cap rates and doing the income approach. Because I know that there was a time years ago when I was doing these appeals where I could lay out the whole analysis of income and cap rates and why one thing is right and another thing is right. And I'm not... I don't have that in my head now. Can I pipe in just... Yeah. Normally with capitalization out in the market when people put prices on property, etc., you don't do it this way. You pick out a cap rate and the taxes are included in the expenses. And so you just take the net profit including property taxes and you divide it by the 10. In assessment, it's a different method. But the reason they do it that way is because the tax rate is a moving target and the way they do it is they have a higher cap rate but a higher net income also. And so as the assessor, I believe, said in the end it comes out the same, more or less. But assessing valuation is different and it is a little hot to understand, actually. Actually, that I understood that we had the taxes in afterwards because we don't know what they are. Until the valuation. Correct. Will you explain, please, why you added the 2.28, I think you said, to the 9.35? Yes. Because of the fact that you're not including the property taxes in your expenses so your profit is artificially high and the way you take care of that is you add in the tax rate. That is the current tax rate. If you multiply 2.2 times the valuation of any property on the grand list, that's the property taxes. So that's the formula that's used. We're basically doing it exactly the way the assessors do it. We're not making up our own methodology. We're going along with the way it's done. And that's why you add the tax rate to the base rate and then divide it into a figure that does not include taxes as an expense. And just so I have the numbers right, it's 2.2082, right? 2.2082 is the current commercial tax rate. You were missing a zero there. I wasn't going to do the math. So are you contesting the gross income or net income that are listed in the assessor's report here? Because those are very different numbers. It's kept from the market. It's not based on real numbers. So that's not what the assessor said. The assessor said that the gross income, the vacancy loss, the expenses, the reserves to calculate the net income, that all of those came from information that you reported. These are, as we said with the Jacobs property, we take all of the data that was given to us, including they did provide income. It's all put into a pool. Typically this is what a $100. Oh, this is everybody in Montpelier. This is not specific to this property. Correct. Because they didn't understand that. Their financial information is proprietary. It's confidential. It stays in the assessor's office. Okay. They did not understand this. But you chose to not make an analysis and gave us that information just now. It's my understanding from a taxpayer standpoint to have the actual information is the superior way too. This property has a couple of expenses that are higher than normal. One of them is maintenance. And the other one is management. There's over 100 people that live there. It needs basically a full-time manager. And the expenses of running this place are very high. And so the expense ratio is in the area of 50%, whereas a newer place would be more like 35% or 40% expense ratio. So to me, it's fairer to look at the actual money that this property has earned in the last three years. And then we'll use the highest of that the most recent year. This is the actual numbers. It isn't some theoretical numbers. You'll notice the expenses are pretty high in the reported on the second page there. Any other questions? Is there any reason not to use the actual numbers if we have them? No. I can't divulge them because they're confidential. But if they're provided, do you consider them? I have them. They're all in these packages are the summary sheet, the actual income expenses. A amendment describing the maintenance and the comps that were revealed and the subdivision and the tax returns. Well, but, Sal, Marty, you can tell me if you think I'm wrong about this. But I can think of some reasons not to use the taxpayer's actual income expenses, and that is that that's all dependent on how this particular property owner manages the property. And so if we had a property owner who's bad at keeping apartments rental, then their vacancy rate would be higher. If they were bad at collecting rents and their incomes would be lower. So there might be reason to... And since we're looking at what a possible sale would be, they might be selling to someone, either selling to someone who's better at doing this or just selling it based on the median rent commercial property owner. The information, the numbers that are provided for me are what's supposed to rent for them. What it does rent for them is good times, bad times. These are expectations based on the market, correct? Yeah, Lauren. This income approach is new to me. Does the net expense include... Like you mentioned that you have a large mortgage on this property. Does that subtract that? No. Mortgage interest is not included in the expenses. And mortgage expenses are not included. No. Along with depreciation, property taxes, one or two other items. Thanks. And you didn't go into this at all. Aside from pointing out that you've got some concerns about the condition of the property, and I know that, for instance, that the roads can be challenging up there. But do you dispute at all the assessor's characterization of the physical condition of the property? No, it's an average condition, which is what the COD says. And it wasn't that way when we bought it. It's a lot better. We've put money into it over the years. And as for whether a different owner could have a better income and expense statement, I highly doubt it. We've had this for 16 years. We have three professionals that spend most of their time managing it. We get rents that are the most that I can imagine getting. And I can't imagine someone doing battle in terms of their net income. Okay, thanks. Okay, volunteers to be on the committee for this? Mary, Sal, Tim, do you want to do this? I'm just thinking that if your expertise might be valuable, but I know you're also very busy. So I'm trying to balance that. Me too. No, that's why I too. Okay, thanks. Good work. Shall I leave these four packages with you? Yes. And part of the process is to go over and inspect the property. I assume it's okay with you if the committee goes over there. Absolutely. Oh, I'm not... Yeah, I am. We have a very nice property manager. And she'll show you anything you want. Great. Thanks a lot for coming in. And who is that in... And how do we contact them? Yeah. Her name is Rebecca. And... Maybe you don't want to say it out loud, because I think we don't need to talk about it. Okay. Email it to... Probably to John. Oh, okay. John Odom. Okay, thanks for coming in. So I'll just keep one of these in here. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you all. We have Justin Montee. I think he's here. Okay. It's not somebody I know, so it's fine. Yeah. Well, why don't we just pass over it for now? No, I'm sorry. For the next time, yeah. David Morris. David Morris? All right. Come on down. 71 Dillon Street. We're skipping over Montee. Yeah. We're not pursuing an appeal. We don't know. We're going to skip over them. And John will try to reach them. Okay. So next property is at 71 Berlin Street owned by David Morris. The reappraisal contract is set and initial value of $82,900. During the informal appeal, Mr. Morris came in and said, Mr. Morris, the contract was not able to get in the initial round of inspections, but they did on the day of the informal meetings and an adjustment was made for condition, lowering the property to $77,500. The home sits on a 0.12 acre lot on Berlin Street. It's a one and a half story home built around 1890. The home is rated as poor condition and given a C- construction quality build. The subject does show excessive wear and lack of routine maintenance, so the dwelling is given 74% appreciation for the physical characteristics. A 20% reduction in assessment for the second floor is unfinished and a 5% functional appreciation for the foundation issues. So they're giving it an 80% total and those numbers don't match up, they don't add up. There's different ways to configure appreciation, so when you add 74 and 25 it doesn't add to 80, but overall it is 80% depreciated. However the property is lived in, somebody is living there. So he was the day you were here. Yeah, that's true. So what we're doing is we're establishing value on April 1. If he moves out afterwards we'll talk about that for next year. The three comparable properties are similar in condition and location. The subject property is on Berlin Street. Everybody knows how much traffic there is there. Matter of fact it is given a traffic highway traffic neighborhood designation. Number 9 Berlin Street is right on the corner of Northfield in Berlin Street. It was an office building at one point, then it was an apartment. That one sold at $53 per square foot. The sale price of $120,000. 14 George Street was a foreclosure in fair slash unfinished condition sold at $95 per square foot. 196 Berry Street is another home with condition issues. It's sold in 2019 for $115 per square foot. Subject assessment at $77,500 translates into $59 per square foot for assessment. Equity comparisons 4.5 Sibley Ave closest in condition. This is a place with no no functioning kitchen a bathroom with it's uninhabitable. Structurally it's standard but it's in very poor condition. 11 Hubbard Street is a foundation only. It's a property that the home burnt so there is a foundation there and the assessment on that is $97 per square foot. So you see that the assessments all kind of fall right in line. Number 17 River Street that's a home that's in very poor condition as well and that one the assessment is at $62 per square foot. So I believe based on the sales and the equity comparison I think the assessment of $77,500 is fair and like I said it was inspected by the reappraiser contractor so there shouldn't be any issues with the physical characteristics of the list of card that you'll see which is attached. You'll be able to find the depreciation that the property is given on the side with the picture so that'll give you the poor condition of the bathroom the kitchen and the different physical characteristics of the property. You'll notice that on the other side of the property record card with the one with the P for Patriot the land value accounts for $47,000 and the building itself is $29,700 which gives us a total assessed value of $77,500. Questions on that? Any questions for the assessor? Could you tell me where the land value is? Sure. The side with the P for Patriot right up on the top. Okay, thanks. Which one? The land value? The same as they have they've tracked all the sales. There's a land schedule. Yes. Please. It takes into account the front age and the traffic and the assess. Yeah, so often we talk about neighborhood designations. This one's designated a traffic heavy for the main highway. So the unit price for an acre of land in that particular neighborhood would be $65,000. If you go up on College Street it's going to be $250,000. So it's adjusted down for the size of the lot. But one acre of land in that neighborhood would start at $65,000. So if you look at the very bottom of that card Is there a list of these neighborhoods with these Not with like a map I have sent you out the neighborhood designations but there's no I'd have to look for the price per acre of each neighborhood. Kim has one. I'd appear. But market value of Tim's got different numbers. So because it's kind of a building lot is a building lot. You're not just taking the full acre and dividing it because that would end up less than $47,000. So it's because they have .12% of a whole acre that the value comes down to $47,000. No, but .12% times $65,000 wouldn't get you $47,000. It's a portion of. So a full acre would be $65,000. And then there's an adjustment of 6.13. That's what I'm asking you. I'm not sure exactly what that goes on. My assumption is that when you said to us before like the fact that you can build something there. And then so there's also in the calculation summary they make other adjustments for the lack of usability the so there's that the adjustment of 6.13 reduced. And one question that occurs to me is there parking on this lot? Yes. Okay, good. We'll get to you, but thank you. Any other questions for the assessor? Mary? Or not? I'm a little stuck on the land value. So an acre in this area would normally be $65,000. This is a tenth of an acre. Don't divide by or multiply by a tenth to get the land value. But there is some other way of coming up with would be $78,000. Other calculations made on the calculation summary there's a lot to it and I don't know exactly all of the adjustments that they make to it but they can come to a property that's sloping or doesn't have parking. They can make those adjustments in that 6.13 adjustment. And in the comps that you gave are they similar in land size? Yes. Was that okay? Yeah. Can I just open that? I mean these are adjustments upward. You were talking about they can make adjustments because it's sloped or it doesn't have parking. Those are negative adjustments. This is a plus adjustment. A tenth of $65,000 would be $6,500. Right. $47,000 is 8 times that. Yeah, you've got water and sewer there so they're making adjustments for that. So is there a breakdown of what makes up that value? There are several elements to the adjustment. Yes. All we have is a number here. Dan I would have to look into. I don't know if there's I mean they're all there. I don't know if I can extract it from here. From the car? Yeah. All right. Mr. Morse. Thanks for coming. Thank you. I typically begin my public speaking with a joke and by the way I was really intimidated following that first fellow who's got the voice of a moderator. Man. I'm not going to do with that. Anyway, my joke. This property. I view as I do my AMC Hornet. Which was a random collection of spare parts loosely organized around the oil leak. Okay. Now I describe the property. You have the copy of my grievance. Okay. And by the way we are but it's right up against the street which is straight down. And the water from there ends up in this. It's a dugout basement. Half of its crawl space. And its average is about five feet high. And it's a pond every year. Every spring and every fall. So the house doesn't have a full bath. It has a three quarter bath. The depreciation on this card 29,000 like I said there that truly made me laugh. And on your second try after it they started it 82 brought it down to 77. They failed to note the failed condition of the propane boiler. For three years Lloyd's has kept that thing. Lloyd's plumbing and heating has kept that gas boiler limping along. And it's just done. It's over. There's no fix. It flooded this last time. And it's a 1980s boiler and you know people would say why don't you go to FEMA and I'm there. It's just not fair to my neighbors to try to collect a boiler off that thing that was absolutely worthless. Anyway, so I can't heat it. My son has abandoned it. And I stuck a sign on it this evening. I went and made sure all the light still worked and it it was hadn't been broken into and I put a sign there for sale fixer upper for sale by owner the exterior of the front and sides very poor condition back dreadful condition. I don't need to read this to you, right? You all can read that. Okay. Right. Okay. I received a notice and by the way my mom's been dead about six years and my dad's been dead about 18 years. I received a notice from the City of Montpellier's Assessor's Office April 1st 2020 and it said the previous value was 52,500. That had been they they'd gone up over 100,000 and I had I had blown a cork and went down to anyway they cut it to 52,500 and it stayed there until this reappraisal in April of 2020 and they changed it to 27,500 reducing it 25,000 dollars 25,000 dollars almost half and they only had a three word comment for why they had done that condition of dwelling and that was April 1st, 2020 there has been zero improvements or maintenance on that house since and zero and so the depreciated deterioration of that 1890's estimated structure has been going downhill at an incredible rate and by the way the witham house next door which was a much nicer house had a full concrete line basement beautiful rooms and then they passed on in that front beautiful porch the double decker porch there it started to go and started to go and collapse and I guess the city made them tear it down and they just tore the building down well before they did that I had a handshake in the back room there that was the kitchen to sell it for 32,000 and I left and seven minutes later the man called me back and withdrew his offer which kind of bet my neck out of shape but the furnace is done I cannot keep that house I have a couple of hundred watt space heaters upstairs that I used to have four of them that I used to heat the place until the Lloyds could get there to fix the boiler but and like I said it floods every year now as far as upstairs goes the upstairs stairs as I described there they are so narrow and so high and the railings are so pathetic and the upstairs guard rail are so pathetic I had a very similar house in St. Johnsbury where I took it to the state appraiser on the appeal from the Board of Civil Authority and he just discounted it the second floor was gone because of the access and by the way their second floor was much higher than the six foot ceiling in one room in the six eight ceiling in the other with slopes on both shoulders I could add a little piece of humor here well let's just keep to that point if we could it's a bit of a long night for you alright I look forward to I didn't bring the pictures because three of you are going to come see it I spared you that that basement is a nightmare I I got lights in all the rooms it's that back is really collapsing I would like to close by commenting that you people sent me two mailings on September 8th and September 20th did you receive two mailings September 8th, September 20th actually I got the second one the first one let's keep on track here's why I wanted to say that that first gentleman the first mailing on September 8th was City of the Board of Civil Authority rules of procedure for property tax assessment and appeals hearings and on the second page you got after your hearing and then you've got a batement with a nice paragraph on how to get help with the batement says if you want to apply for a batement contact your city clerk he just said he was going to late getting a one of you three going to see this gentleman you could take him a copy gently thank you good to know Mr. Moore what would you say would be for evaluation of that property 27,000 you said you can't heat it when the assessor went through it and said the house was heated with hot water is that the correction that we're going to make to the record well the boiler was out of service well this is as of April 1st not as of April 1st ok that's my question by April 1st I believe that boiler when was the flood July ok April 1st boiler was still still limping along Kevin is the foundation in good shape no the foundation is collapsed in the back and the guy noted when I took him down through that there's a giant rock that that maple tree in front pushing right into the basement in the whole front of the so the integrity at the front is very questionable and the integrity at the back is just non-existing the we put a plank up against the side of the house to hold the roof from and the door has been refusing to close now and I shaved an inch off it and it still wouldn't close the back door just sort of been putting a blanket in and shoving it do you think the house should be removed I think it will be removed whoever buys it from me whatever they pay for it I think it will be removed yeah they needed parking next door and that's what that's what he was shaking his hands to move me for $32,000 okay there are comments about the foundation issues that you're asking about there's it's noted on the appraiser card that it's very worn and painted with three loops pushing the foundation I should ask the assessor we have the taxpayer says that it's listed as a one bedroom and he says three-quarter bathroom has that been it is a three-quarter bathroom okay good thank you and it is also on the we accept his testimony that the structure is not salvageable and the foundation needs to be removed as well in order to use the land to be depreciated by costs of clearing the land so to speak yes yes if you're going to game the home worthless there's cost to take it off but there is value in the land itself and like I said hasn't it I'm sorry what would it cost to take all this down I don't know but this is like I said as a vehicle first there was somebody living there at the time we're going to have to talk about everything else if you don't sell it for the next grand list okay we're going to appoint a three-person committee I'm going to suggest based on what you told us about the property that the taller members of the board should not fall into here and I promised to clean the cobwebs out of the basement I already did the stairway and that was enough but anyway so I'll volunteer to be on this committee and Donna and Lauren is that it I was going to volunteer I'm too tall apparently does John have your email address I'm not sure okay we'll I have his phone number okay good we'll be in touch thank you I'm good my key chain any buyers yeah thank you okay criteria and corporation welcome thank you so this is 11 St. Paul Street correct so we have 11 St. Paul Street are you in the building everybody all set there criteria and corporation no it's Steve corpora yeah PORPORA sorry Rosie re-appraised the contractor setting the initial value of $416,400 property owner did come to the informal meeting changes were made to the room count condition finished that was missed so it did raise the assessment to 421,100 there were no changes made during the formal grievance period properties of a multi-unit building on point one two acre of land on St. Paul Street neighborhood is considered early average the property was built approximately 1875 it is three units with a total 3,804 square feet property record card has four bathrooms a three-quarter bath and seven bedrooms in the building the building rating as far as the construction is C or average and it is given an average condition five sales of similar properties of three and four units they have sold between 121 and 195,000 per unit sales one four and five are probably most similar because they are also three unit buildings and they are in the 173 to 195 range assessment of the subject is 140,000 per unit no income was reported on this property equity comparables are pulled from within the neighborhood these are all two and three unit buildings all in average condition the assessment of the subject is 140,000 per unit neighboring properties are 148 to 165 per unit range so it appears to me that the subject property is equitably assessed at 421 100 property record card pretty standard it has average conditions the room counts depreciation of 33% bathrooms and kitchens all rated as average and the land breakdown for the property any questions on this one yeah Mary so income was recorded on this so you did not use the evaluation that is correct could you not have used the average for this standard throughout the city we could have and that's a question I need to ask of the assessor because of the reappraiser contract because I'm not sure exactly some three unit buildings I don't know if it's a size thing but for some reason they did not use the income on some three unit and two unit buildings my educated guess would be that these are typically except for in this case they're typically owner occupied which would skew the numbers so my guess and I would have to check again but my guess is because these are typically owner occupied and so the interesting question is what would have been the result if you could have approached or used is there any way understand that I think I can probably plug the numbers in Mr. Projeski is actually going to be at the next the meeting next week and I can ask him that question before then any other question Rosie would we be able to get that and then into the record if we find out about it later I will check with him Monday and then email the response to John he can then forward it on to wherever one's on the committee or I can email it directly to you and then the question really is do we have the power to reopen the record and I'm told that we do have the ability to do that and of course then the taxpayer would have an opportunity to comment on that because otherwise it wouldn't be fair okay ready for the taxpayer thank you all for giving us the opportunity to come in here you all have my summary sheets I know it's getting late so I'll try to make this as quick as possible so I'll just kind of walk through this summary thing and you can maybe stop me and ask questions if you had when we first got the reassessment I did look for comps I didn't find a comp right in my neighborhood that I thought was similar and I don't know about these comps I will take a look at these and I'm sure they're they're relatively I see there's one actually on St. Paul's street which is the street that my house is on 37 St. Paul which was 121 per unit but anyway I went about a little bit different ways since I couldn't find the comps so what I did is I took my neighborhood and the way I just found a neighborhood as I drew a circle on the map literally around 11 St. Paul's street and I looked at the streets that were encompassed in that and then there were 69 houses the streets that were in my neighborhood were St. Paul's street my street school street Cedar Street and Loomis Street they were all kind of around this they're really my neighborhood all those houses are very close so there were 69 houses including my own so the way I went about it for the first time that I came before the the appeal was I figured out the percentage increase of each of those 69 and I think you have my worksheets it's hand written so but I think it's pretty clear so I took the 69 houses including mine and I figured the percentage increase from the prior assessment and I also noted that my house since the last assessment I haven't done I've done routine maintenance I've taken care of the place but I haven't done any capital major capital improvements and I haven't done any additions so it's basically the same it was at the last reassessment so I thought that was pretty consistent anyway so for the first appeal I found that my house was increased 77% from its prior assessment and the 69 houses the 69 other houses in my quote neighborhood they were increased 61.970 average of all the 69 houses was 61.97 and mine was 77.15 so I went to the I guess it was the first appeal was to the your the contractor what's that it was the contractor the contractor the whatever the name of that organization was and I presented these numbers to him and I guess he didn't think much of my presentation because he then raised my taxes 420 to 421,000 you raised it $4700 which kind of surprised me but you sort of explained the reason why it was raised but I wasn't told that they missed something when they whatever you brought in made them realize they missed three they missed a bathroom or something on the record card 376 square feet in the rear section it wasn't accounting for it was also a room condition adjustment so those two things the additional square footage is what raised since you brought up the square footage and I mentioned this to that gentleman I showed my square footage is 3400 square feet too but the contractor told me it was 3800 and I brought it to his attention at that time and I said you know I'll have the place re-measured if you want and he said he didn't really respond to that so I show my square footage to be 3400 and I think you mentioned it was 3800 so there is a discrepancy there but I'll put that aside let me go back to this when they raised my assessment to 421 so when I went back and updated that worksheet that you see with the 69 properties what happened then was with the increase that he gave to me my property my increase was 79.1% and at the same time of the 69 properties that I have in that study nine properties were reduced so the average became 60.63 increase in the average of those 69 houses in my quote neighborhood so based on those numbers my assessment increase was 31% higher than the average of all 69 properties and you know being that my my approach to the whole thing was being that my house was not didn't have any material improvements or additions that I would expect that I would be more toward I'm not looking to have a bargain but I would hope that I would be more toward the average of the 69 house in my neighborhood which was a 60% increase whereas mine was a 79% increase it just seems skewed to me but that's about it okay any questions go ahead Mary there is a factual question of what is the square foot so we're off by 400 square feet for whoever the committee is do we run the tape around to make sure that we got how do we figure that out if there's a discrepancy in square footed then that should be done yes we don't have this fancy laser measure we'll get a lesson the contractor did not get inside so the information that we have is historical and what they will do is if they don't get them through a property they will measure the outside it does get a little tricky to get inside apartments measuring what the square foot is in each apartment but on the record we will see how much we have for the first floor, second floor basement the square foot is that we have part on the car so you can measure it and then just match it to what we have on the car it looks like you got 3420 when you had the first floor and the second floor on the car and there's also some unfinished the UAT the 384 so that's finished square feet as well right-hand side of the sub area detail that UAT is now finished so which UAT stands for? it stands for unfinished attic but it is, if you look over to the right has been finished and so maybe we can ask Mr. Korra do you disagree? so looking at the car and the information that they're providing there can you point out to us where the discrepancy is and how they the measurements? I mean unless I have a tape measure to measure my building I can't exactly figure it because I didn't see this I guess I should have but no, I mean I don't know where the discrepancy is but I mean I figured it out and I mean I would have to measure it to answer your question properly and you deserve an answer certainly so either that or some of us are going to go measures we'll find out and I just want to make sure I understood so it was listed as an unfinished attic space but in fact it is a finished attic space correct and we would agree with that I'm not sure where that where is that attic located in what portion of the building because I didn't finish any I didn't change anything from the last assessment and it could be something that has been missed for years that would be kind of part of the reason why your numbers are different your percent of increase because when they did the last re-appraisal in 2010 that was an accounted for so you were at a certain so even though you didn't make any physical changes to your property they found something that was different so that will skew the numbers of everybody else is only going up here you went up this much part of the reason why so I didn't sit in on your informal hearing I don't know what it was that triggered him to find that but something you brought to him made him realize that they forgot to account for that if that makes sense Marty I remember you telling us at a previous meeting that there is somewhere on the card where you can tell if the previous assessment was based on an inspection on the other side with the P on the right-hand side there's activity information so you go back to August 16 the contractor measured the outside and left the card they did not get a call back to go schedule the inside there was a hearing change June 4th for the informal meetings and then a denial by the assessor on July 24th but then going down below that in 2010 there was a grievance and there was a change and then 2010 measured left card so it looks like again going back as far as 2010 at least nobody has gotten in to see the property correct to inspect it and I've got a question that is always people always want to know the answer to this when we're making square footage do you just stand on the outside and measure the dimensions of the building or do you go inside and measure the dimensions of all the rooms what's the correct way to do that so the parameter is measured first and then the second floor you can't do that from the exterior so the second floor apartment is going to measure interior wall to wall right so things like stairwell is a stairwell area is that part of the square footage no okay Rosie and then when we get to the attic is there a ceiling height that makes it full square footage and under a certain ceiling height it's not square foot it's not my world is an appraiser it's four feet four feet it's actually changed in the finance world with mortgages it has to be it has to be straight anything that's not what I mean it's irrelevant here but there are different measurements for banking as well so for knee walls that's discounted so can I can I ask the FLN you gave us a number of 3400 square feet where did you get that number from I got it from my original purchase okay my closing documents and then in 2007 there was a barn attached to the back of the building that I converted and I measured that and added that to it the barn I have the numbers in here someplace um that's how I came up with I took my original because when I bought the building I think it was in 2006 the barn was not converted so it was just the two unit outs and then in 2007 I converted that barn made a two bedroom apartment and I measured I figured it very simply I just measured the barn and I doubled it because there's two stories that includes the stairwell but that doesn't matter and that's how I came with my square footage number so I went from my original closing documents I added the barn and that's how I came up with I came up with 3372 so maybe I'm wrong or maybe my closing documents were wrong but um those are the numbers I came up with Donna and then Tim well along with the back side here it actually gives square footage for the first floor second floor basement and the entire time so the difference between the two is the attic number the 384 and his 340 400 as Tim was saying before the first floor and the second floor add up to 3420 so it's pretty close to what you have and then if you add in the finished finished attic that's the difference of 384 feet I'm not sure about the attic maybe that's the barn that you were talking about oh is it we'll get to check I'm confused about what they mean by attic because I certainly anyway whatever you'll figure it out Tim the only questions on the stairway the stairwell thing is good you're just measuring the perimeters if there's stairwells in there they're part of the square footage it's supposed to be taken out I never knew that yeah any other questions okay how high is the attic ceiling is it 4 feet standing in the middle I'm not sure what they mean that's why I'm confused I'm not sure what they mean by the attic I do in the main building there's one stairwell a second stairwell that goes up to I guess what you would call the attic and that was there when I bought the building so there's a bedroom up there and I know it has this type of arrangement but it's just one room so it's not like it's a gigantic attic I'm not sure I can show everybody on the card if you look at the sketch on the side of the picture can I see that oh yeah if you look at the sketch on top there the section at the very bottom it says UAT, SFL FFL, BMT and in parentheses it says 384 match that up to the the building that you're looking at and you'll see the porch on the front here which matches up to the OFT on the sketch which is an open front porch the third floor there on the picture is where that attic space would be okay right in the middle where that window is on the sketch itself you'll see lines and that's where that section is sketched out and that measures out to 384 square feet right so that window on the front on the third floor that's the extra bedroom that I'm talking about is in the back of the main structure the front where that window is that's not finished okay yeah they can go up there and see it so when you go the third floor bedroom is if you look at the main part of the building not the barn the third floor bedroom is at the back of the building so this is the picture of the front of the building so it's not like it's the whole attic that is finished it's one bedroom up there so I'm not saying it's 10 by 32 no that's probably the whole attic yeah that would be the whole attic but that whole attic is not finished it's just one bedroom the front section that's just attic anyway that's why we have the process to figure this out Karen are you raising your hand okay any other questions for the taxpayer okay can I get a three person committee to do this can I do this thank you who's going to hold the other end of the tape yeah someone gets to use the electronic measuring thing it's just a little laser a little red laser beam somebody's going to have to crawl up in the attic which isn't me and one more donna was going donna was going okay thank you alright Mariah Quinn just a trivial question can you talk about doing that laser hallway and you have closets in that hallway you don't include the space in the closets in your spare footage so I'm kind of still focused on the bank work the bank work where Tim was talking about um the stairwell night because it's not rentable space so I got to double check on what is done here because in the assessing world it will be different well this is the hallway I remember him coming in with and he was there quick and I kept thinking that closet space is phenomenal he cool when the appraiser came to my place oh oh so quick it's hard to say that he was there but he had his laser and he was doing this and he kept wondering about the closets because the hallway has these phenomenal closets and one of them is a big wardrobe what's your address again I wasn't even told I was concerned about all the condos would be under a crazed and would mess up everybody and they wouldn't listen to me so no that's going to be reflected I did hear you when you came in the sales of the condos were three years sales study and what you saw is like the last eight months or the last year I was going to ask my question was about the square footage it's a real understatement if you're not doing the things behind those doors no that would be included closets especially in the condo he never opened any of them well we're not supposed to in the assessing world you're not supposed to open doors in closets in bank work you open everything in this world you're not ok so Mariah Quinn not here gonna follow up with her well that's weird because it's alphabetically in the order for tonight so let's try to schedule her we can recess now early