 All right, well, I think I will call us to order even maybe one minute early because I think everybody who needs to be here is here. Thank you to all the members of the council of board of the authority for being here because it's a lot of work and I appreciate you all being here. The first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is everyone okay with the agenda as written? Okay, great. Next item on the agenda is to elect a chair and a vice chair and accept nominations. Second. For chair. Chair. Yes, sir. Thank you. Are there any other nominations for chair? Okay. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, and next nominations are open for vice chair. Are there any volunteers, anyone who would like to do it? I'm happy, sir. Okay. Vice chair. Any other takers? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. I didn't catch the second. Second. I'm a little bit off that one. Rosie, Dan, this one we all have. And next item on the agenda is to adopt the rules of procedure. That is the first for us. We've never really had rules of procedure before. I think it's a good idea if they were all sent to you in your packets and you can discuss them if you'd like or the board is just open for a motion. Mary? Well, it's so on most of them, but I also have a question or a, but I believe that we adopt an emotional procedure. Is there a second? Okay, Mary. I was just wondering or thinking maybe you should just have a conversation about what a conflict of interest is. I think, I mean, the different boards have maybe different standards and maybe we all need to be on the same, have the same understanding of what that is. Sure. And I have no idea what it is. Well, I have one proposal. Okay. Anybody has a grievance? I should be disqualified. Yeah, I think in fact that's in the statute, but if you file an appeal, you can't sit for any of them. But other than that, the fact that all of us are property owners or most of us are property owners and our taxes might go up by some increment if someone else's taxes go down. That's not enough to create a conflict. I'm going to question Jack on the part about 15 minutes in C3. Is that 15 minutes total for both the city and the appellate? That's the whole. And is there any division there? I would expect the taxpayer to use up most of that time. Okay. And, you know, and we'll see how things go. But we've got a lot of cases to go through. And we've had occasions in the past, as you and I would recall, where people have gone on for longer than they probably needed to in their points. And I would assume if the need was, the board could decide to give them more time. But at least it sets you up for an expectation that's reasonable. Okay. Do you have a question on number seven? Are we, is there any circumstance when the inspection by the group of not less than three would be waived? Or are we anticipating that for every single one we're going to do? We actually are anticipating that there would be waivers of inspections in some cases. Including some of the bigger ones. Probably worth mentioning that that's only made possible because of the state of emergency. That if the governor state of emergency stops that at least my understanding of the statute is we have to have inspections for everything. Yes, Mary. Just back to the conflict of interest. I guess I would have a suggestion that if there's a thought that passes anybody's mind that they may have a conflict. But if, just at the beginning of the hearing in which they have it, if they could just say this is the case. And they do or don't think it's an issue. And you can just say that it's on the table and there's not subsequently a thought of, huh, why, I should have said or somebody thinking that we should have said. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I don't recall ever seeing it come up this year. Anything else? Are you ready for a vote? All those in favor of adopting the rules of procedure as proposed, signified by saying hi. Any opposed? We are ready to go for our first appeal. I think the first appeal is James and Jean Acheson. All right. Yes. Come on up. And I'll say where it is. It's only affirmed the testimony you're about to give. The truth of the whole case and nothing but the truth. Yes. Okay. All right. Mr. Acheson, Eric Acheson, sorry. Okay. Good to you. Who's going first, Marty? No. You go first. Yes. Okay. All right. Our concern is if this hearing is our evaluation of our property. Excuse me just a second. Are you picking him up? Okay. So our concern is with evaluation of our property and rather than the building. And what we have done with our document, our property value went up 171% over the price value. And that in and of itself made it an outlier. So what we did is that we took, I gathered together a sample of properties and it turned out to be about an 87 different properties, which were similar to ours. We have a duplex on Spring Street on the edge of La Meadows. And it's not where it's a rental unit. Both units are rentals. So we don't occupy either one. And so I gathered together information at the individual property value, property level in order to have comparable properties to compare to. And you'll see in our document that that's what we came up with about 87 properties. And then we split them into groups to make them more comparable. And then calculated averages and so forth. So the front table is the data that the graphs are then based on. So basically we had three graphs in our document. And basically the first one, which is going to be on page two, is just shows that the increase of our property value is at the very top. And therefore it is an extreme value in terms of our property value, valuations. And so basically what I wanted to do is I wanted to understand that. And so then I started to look at the data in terms of doing comparisons and particularly focusing on the property value per square foot, which should be a size neutral figure. And so the second graph is one where we're just showing the total property value per square foot. This is the bar graph. And it breaks it down into the three large groups that we were working with were our immediate neighborhood in Spring Street. And then properties in the meadows. And then properties from elsewhere in Montpelier. All these are, again, comparable properties by the same type of neighborhood and the same kind of building, apartment buildings. And there are a few residential ones in there, purely residential because those were in the immediate neighborhood. And I wanted to be able to have a group that was in our neighborhood, purely in our neighborhood. In the second, there are two things in terms of the bar graph. One is just, you can see for the first bar, which is our own property, that property value per square foot for our block is higher than it is for anyone else. It's more than a quarter of the total property value per square foot. And the other thing on this graph is to point out that all the properties in the immediate neighborhood of Spring Street, in our immediate neighborhood, have higher property values per square foot than other comparable properties in either the meadows or in other parts of Montpelier. Another thing that came out while I was working with these data is the fact that our property in the one next to us is, excuse me, are exceptional in that basically we have very little land relative to this, the footprint of the building. So I wanted to, and that seemed to have an effect on the property value per square foot. So then the third graph that shows is plotting the property value per square foot against a measure which is basically the ratio of the building square footage to the property square footage. And you will see on that that both our own property and the one next to us in 12 Spring Street are like extreme outliers in terms of that. So our again concern is with that property valuation, not with the building valuation. And we, I don't have an explanation and nor do I think it's something that is, you know, that I find, that I'm not being critical of the list of these jobs in terms of what they did, but I mean I do know that there's an issue here, and that's what the data with hell is. And our concern, you know, first of all is the overall change just to sort of reiterate is the overall change in our property value going up 171%. Our property value per square foot is $37 per square foot compared to every other thing in our sample and, you know, which are down and mostly in the teens. And the last thing, you know, I have a concern about buildings like ours where there is very small amount of property relative to the size, to the building size. And I think that there's a bias built into the system that I don't understand and I can understand, but I see that in the data. So we, so that's what has brought us here and, you know, what we would like to request is we think that we should be, we feel that our property value is inappropriately high and what we would like to see our suggestion is that it be recalculated based on an average of other comparable meadows properties. I think people will have some questions. Thank you. Is that the end? Okay, thanks. I think we have some questions. I have a couple of questions. Do you, for your property and for the other parcels that you looked at, do you have the actual dollar value of the land? Do you have the land value broken down separately? Yeah, I don't have that. It isn't in the table. Okay. But, you know, because these are all the, you know, what's in the table are data that are basically size neutral. You know, so they're percentages and they're put square for these figures. But, you know, I'd be more than happy to share with anyone the base data that this all came from. It was gathered from the, the Listers, I don't know what you call it, Marty, the database, you know, that has individual property figures and called from there. Okay. Thanks. Anyone else have any questions? I didn't really hear what you said. Is there a land value for all these other properties that they're showing or is it just that it's built into a table? It's all built. I think I gather it's all built into a table. We have not got the land value either from this property or from the other values or the other properties. Although I'm sure the card will have the land value. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying is that there is base data. It's not showing in this document which has been aggregated that that table has like, is like averages for the groups that we define. That's Mary, Mary, and then Rosie, and then Donna. Thank you for doing such a thorough analysis. That's really super and very helpful in understanding your thinking. The comparables that you're offering are to a large extent residential. I understand the argument. You're in the meadow. Look at the meadow. Right. So I wonder if you have, did you look at some of the Lister's comparables which are outside of that area which are looking at multiple family dwellings? And do you have a comment on that? Yeah. So you'll see that there are three larger groups. One is our immediate neighborhood of 12 Spring Street and then there's Meadows properties. And then there's the other category is like from all over Montpelier, outside of the Meadows. So those were just based on the basic criteria, the kind of neighborhood. I'm not sure what you'd call it, but the field is. But basically we, the initial group was just called based on those things that were typical of our own property. And then your scatter graph. I can read the names of some of them except there's a cluster. Yeah. I'm sorry. Other where we're seeing some of those. Yeah. Everything ties should, you should be able to relate everything back to that initial table. Okay. Rosie. So my question was about what the actual addresses were that you drew on from the sample. And so I see now that some of those are on the scatter chart, but it would be helpful to see. Okay. Thank you. Well, I was confused when you said there wasn't a known land value on your chart list of land value. And I, on your first, second page, I wish these were numbered, but, and likewise on your graph, you assign a certain amount to a land value. So somewhere that number exists. There are many values on all properties. Yeah. I thought it was also on the cities listing that we have. It is. Okay. So there, those I'm working, what's showing there in terms of the values there per square foot? Okay. Okay. So it's a land value per square foot and that neutralizes the fact, the value of the. Right. Well, not in your case, but another one who covered the sheets from the city's work, it would list, this is the land value within the assessment. Yeah. On those city records, they're all broken down by land. Okay. Building. And we could find that sheet for this property because we do have it for Carpenter, that's where I found it. So maybe we need that. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Carey raising your hand? Okay. Okay. Marty, why don't I swear to you in two? You still only affirm the testimony you're about to give in all the proceedings tonight. Okay. Okay. So for doing mass appraisals, there's three things we have to focus on. One is the property assessed fairly when compared to market value, you know, we're home selling for. Is the property assessed accurately to the neighbors? And is the data factual? So we had a round of informal meetings back in the day. So we were able to kind of get out all the factual, you know, wrongs, bads and accounts, wrongs, square foot, just things like that. So everything I have, we believe it ought to be factually true. So what I have done from here is I'm doing basically the same things. Mr. Action, I'm just writing some comps. And does everybody, does everybody have a copy of my reports for tonight? Because I can pass them out. And what I'm doing is I'm comping his house to other multiple family dwellings. There's a breakdown of their property in particular, the size, the build. A lot of the changes in here come based on depreciation. So if you look on the first page, we're breaking this down. We're comparing the property at 12 Spring Street to three homes that have sold. When the city, or when the appraisal contractor did the reappraisal, they did a three-year sales study starting from April 1 of 2020 to April 1 of 2023. They took all the sales, put them into a database, and these three sales fell within that time period. We have the sale price year built, square footages, and a breakdown of the sales, what they sold for on a price-based record. Along with the condition, you know, a lot of the average condition can be a lower sale price. So I have comped it out to three homes that I find are pretty similar that are sold. And they're all selling above $140 a square foot, which is what we have 12 Spring Street assessed at. That's the entire property. This isn't, you know, a house and land. And also it's important, like I said, to compare equitably to make sure that they are not over-assessed when compared to other similar properties. And there's three other properties on the second page under the equity comparison section. And that also breaks down how much their assessment is per square foot. You can see that they fall in line with 10, 12 Brown Street, 300 Elm Street. Those are multi-unit properties. And there's also a sub-note under there that Liberty Street has since sold for $90,000 over assessment since this was printed out. So I think they're pretty comparably assessed where they are at $3.994. It matches out when you comp it out to sales and to equity. Liberty Street seems to fall in line. So if anybody has any questions, fire away, Mr. Go ahead, Ken. The second page. Would you explain what that last column is? What are the figures? Those are the square feet? The second page? Yes. Yes, sir. That's the condition of each one of the columns. They're average and it's a dollar per square foot assessed to square foot. So you just divided the assessment by the number of square feet. Correct. And that ends the same for the sales. Okay. Do you look at the condition of the building? These are all average. That's pretty subjective, isn't it? Most of these were viewed by the re-appraisal contractor or it's based on, if they were unable to get into the property, it's based on what the condition was given previously. If they disagree with the condition of the property, they have a chance to go through formal grievance for us to go and inspect to change it. Okay. So some of it's historical data, but the appraisal contractor, I believe, got into 75% of the parcels or properties. And one other question. What are the complaints here? Mr. Atchison says he has no yard. That seems to me like it means the building takes up most of that plot. So is that any kind of a factor in your thinking that lack of a yard? So they will make, the re-appraisal contractor will make adjustments for, there's sloping access issues right away. In other ways, if they felt that there was a need for a negative adjustment to a lot, they would make it. But they're thinking, when they comp these out, is that they're similar to neighboring properties. They're all in that 0.5 to 0.15 acre lot. And when they sell, you don't see a huge discrepancy in sale price. Mary. Thank you. I just want to confirm that the data that you're paying us is for multiple family homes. Correct. Yes. And I know we're a really small place and there's not a lot of comps to draw upon. But to me, there's a difference in desirability, which I assume translates into income and thus the assessment between certain streets and other streets. Can you comment on how that works? Sure. Sure. On the record cards themselves, when you get to it, these things are really really detailed. And they do go into detail about the property itself. Every neighborhood is given a designation. This home is in what is considered early good. So there's early good, there's early fair. There's a whole list of neighborhoods. And then what they do is they set a base rate of an acre of land in an early good neighborhood itself for $160,000 if it was an acre of land. Because this lot is smaller, it takes value away. So every neighborhood has a designation and is given value. College Street is $250,000 an acre. Over here it's what I just said, $160,000 an acre. So it is all broken down by neighborhood. Now, so are what you showed us all early good also? Probably not. No, there's a difference. There are differences in the neighborhood. Some of these are better. East State Street is considered a good neighborhood also. So those two, I don't remember the designation for Terra Street. I think Terra Street, they call traffic average just because of the traffic up there. Carrie. So am I correct that we were not provided the property card and the materials that we got? Yeah, I think it would be good to have that. I'm happy to print them off next time. Sorry about that. So then I just have a bigger question about receiving information and how we're allowed to get it. I could look up the property card right now. Is that okay? Or should I just be aligned with what's provided to me by the assessor and by the appellant rather than doing my own individual research? I don't think you're going to want to do your own research as well. I don't think you know what I'm looking for. Right. I think that's a good question. I realize you received evidence outside of what's provided to us in the hearing. Yeah, but generally, we've been told we're not supposed to accept evidence outside of the hearing. So that means, for instance, the committee goes out to visit the property. The person always wants to talk to us about stuff that they didn't say when they were in the hearing. That's technically not allowed either because it's evidence taken not outside of the hearing. But I think having the property card for every one of the properties is essential. And so what I'm inclined to rule for purposes of tonight that we'll hold the record open for all the properties that are on for tonight for the assessor to get us the property cards. And in the future to provide them for all future properties. Yes. If a member has information, can they make an offer of putting it into evidence? What do you mean? We would vote on whether it could come in. Could you, I'm not sure what you mean by that, Kim. Well, apparently she has some evidence that she thinks is persuasive. And it's written. Could that be circulated and we could decide whether we want to include that evidence? I think what she said was that she could right now look up the property card and offer it. And so what I said was I'll just accept the property cards for all of tonight's properties after we get done tonight. So we don't have to deal with that problem. All right. So that's confirming that we stick with the evidence represented. Yes. And if somebody should come up and take it, what to you? Yeah, I think so. And then you three can consider and then Branch. Add a subsequent hearing, I think. Okay. Rosie and then Bob. So I just wanted to clarify, is early related to the age of the properties or related to it's an improving neighborhood? Typically it's the age of the buildings. Okay. Typically. Great. Thanks. And Bob. Yeah. The only question was when we're talking about evidence after the inspection committee goes out, is that considered evidence to us when they can give the report? I don't know if the report is considered evidence, but as I think to a degree it is because the report, the inspection committee is often might be giving their own impression of what the property is like. Right. That goes as part of the report. They may come out with a different measurement from the inspection committee. And you would need to take that as evidence. As an obvious thing, they could go out and find a different number of bedrooms. And that obviously goes into the report. Marty, I have a question. In previous years we've heard about, we've heard a fair amount about land values and how land values work with regard to real estate appraisals. And what the previous assessor regularly would say to us is that there's not that much variation of land value based on area or amenity or that kind of thing because the basic purpose of the land is to support the structure. And so a building lot is a building lot. Maybe, as you said, varying for different neighborhoods. Is that how you see it? It's been my experience. I am also a bank appraiser, fee appraiser. It's been my experience. I've very rarely seen a big difference in a tenth of an acre, 0.15, two tenths of an acre, a quarter of an acre. I don't really see a big difference in value. People want to know that they have enough room for their house and garage and their deck. So I don't see a big difference. But it is, in the assessment, it is adjusted for the size. And does it show up in different land lot sizes, show up much in sales prices? Not dramatically, no. Again, I'm not talking about a difference between two acres and a quarter of an acre, but typically anything over a building lot is excess. And then the dollar per square foot of land drops. I've seen it go from 120,000 foot first acre to 6,000 for anything additional. So it's usually just considered excess land. If I could just point out one more thing. We were talking about percent of increase. And I've done a lot of studying on this. And there's been a fluctuation of some people's homes have gone up 20%. Some have gone up 100%. Some 70%. The percent of increase has been all over the place. One of the things that we've found, some homes were under assessed previously. So for them to get from 2010 values to 2023 values, bigger jumps. And so what we're trying to focus on is at the end of the day, is everybody where they're supposed to be. Not how did they get here. Some people didn't take big jumps because they've been filing permits. They've been working on their house. Their assessment's been creeping up. I came across one that people put a quarter of a million dollars into the house never filed one permit. So their jump was 120%. Because we caught it. And I don't mean to suggest that here, but just the percent of increase has been all over the place. So at the end of the day, we want to see, is the assessment where it should be? Not how did we get there, if that makes sense. Any other sound? I wonder if we should, given the table that's been presented, giving the average acreage of the land and the average square foot of the average square foot across. If in fact we do have the land value in the table. That we could be concerned with the car, but we can just do the math here. If these numbers are accurate, we know about what the land value is. Well, I was trying to figure that out. Do you, you could actually back and do it by multiplying the acreage, turning out into square foot, and then multiplying by the figures, the data that are in there. About, you know. I'm sorry? Yes, those you can get off. You can print those online. Those are the online records. I was just, one of the other appellants put on a copy of this online report, and it clearly breaks down. This is your land value. This is your total value. So I think we need this. We're talking about not being able to use that. I think they do we can, because we actually have a way of determining that we might as well go to the column. Yeah, I'll PDF, you know, whatever tomorrow, you know, for my stuff. You know, for what does that bring? We need to appoint a committee. Can I ask one of the questions? Yes. I'm sorry. Can you explain? He already had one adjustment. Started out at 434, and it went down to 399. Can you give us an idea of when you first met with him? So the first meeting in June was with the reference of contractor. I believe it was a condition adjustment. They felt like maybe they missed with that one. He came in, and I think it was they made a condition adjustment. It went from... The condition of the house? Yeah, so we, you know, we can somebody just said, you know, depreciation and condition are kind of subjective. One person can walk and say it's average. One person says it's average plus. You know, in the grand scheme of things, you're looking at a whole bunch of properties you focus in and say, yeah, that one's off a little bit. So what's, you know, what's the anomaly here? So you can make an adjustment condition. And I believe that's what they did in the first round. Yeah. And as you said, that was an adjustment to the property, to the value of the building. Yeah. All right. Not the property. I think it was on the property. I just like to say a couple of things. Actually, one is a question to Marty. And that is that I believe and I believe that the property next to ours, 15 Spring Street, sold this spring and I'm not sure when, but it was probably April or May. And I believe that actually sold below the assets value. Okay. And that's something that I'd ask if you could check and make it as evidence it should be. Yeah. So one thing, I believe I know what you're talking about. And so, and I probably should have said this first, but what we're, we have to stop as of April 1st of this year. Anything that's sold after, like one of the, one of the comps here on Brown Street and Liberty Street, they both sold after April 1st and they're not included. If you appeal again next year, then we'll bring in along next year. And I think that thing, if I remember, like the house is a pretty rough shape. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I just see it from the outside. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. The other thing is just to we were talking about those neighborhood codes that they used to. And I just wanted to be clear that we took those into account when we were building our sample. So these are incomparable neighborhoods too with the section of, you know, the ones that are, well, Spring Street is the same. And I think there was one that was in a slightly different category in the meadows. And just so it's comfortable. Okay. Basically, those neighborhood factors have been taken into account in the groups that we set. Well, that's an interesting thought. We've never done that. We asked the homeowner what's works for them and then someone says, yeah, that's great. I did what we've done in the past is we've got the committee and then the committee just has to cut that homeowner and make it work. Some people would volunteer when they're available. Well, it just, it was seems like it would make sense if somebody works nights and somebody, you know, we could set something up so that the group that is consistently available on Tuesday afternoons is all on one team that sees the same bunch of houses together that might be more efficient use of our time. I don't know how that would work. I think we just have to assume that we get a team, you know, that you've got all the month to arrange the visit and write the report and the homeowner has to make the place available. And just confirming, we have to do the, the three, the team has to do the site visit within 15 days of today. And then is it 30 days from today that we submit the report or 30 from the 15th? John. The deadlines are somewhat, are on hold now because for two reasons, one, we're not having multiple meetings. This is all going to be one meeting that goes into recess. That's at the advice of the League of Cities and Towns. But also in the state of emergency, all those deadlines are doubled. So I don't need to be thinking, golly, I'm going to be unavailable for some period of time. I'm trying to figure out when I volunteer. And I don't want to leave people in the works. We're not worried about deadlines. It's not a volunteer question. Okay, Bob and then Tim. In the past, I think we've had some visits where we couldn't all visit together. Are we saying we're not going to do that? I think that's okay. But, you know, to the extent possible, we've done it all the time. Yeah, possible. But sometimes it's just someone can't make that day and yep, they go another time. They just don't have any communications separately from them. Right, with the homeowner. Yeah, I think that's fine. Okay, Kim. John mentioned earlier that the visit could be waived. I suppose the homeowner should be asked about that. I don't know what difference that would make, but some people may not want inspection. Others do, but I don't know how you would make the decision. Well, I can tell you that I've talked to the attorney for some of the commercial properties who has said that he doesn't think it's necessary to do an inspection to address the legal issues that he wants to raise in his appeal, just as one example. But I think in a situation like this, I think that I would be expecting there would be an inspection, like for this case. Even if you don't have to get inside, because the property owner isn't contesting anything about the house. Right. So why have an inspection? To look at the property. To look at the land. To look at the land. Yeah. You make a social report. It's in the law. It's in the law. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. But it can be waived. It can be waived. I mean, in my case, it's a rental property. And again, our concern is not with the building assessment, but with the property evaluation. And we would be, I'm happy to meet with anyone. And I work in Montpelier. I live in Waterbury. So I would just, and I live close by. I work close by so I can break away reasonable flexibility in breaking away. But if someone wants to just, you know, go there, and walk around the property, then that's fine. Just let me know, you know, when you're going to do it so I can alert my renters and let them know that somebody will be coming by, maybe coming by. Okay. So Mary, you're getting ready to volunteer. And Carrie and Sal. Okay. Okay. Great. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks for coming in. All right. Thank you. Next up, we have Joseph Blatchford. Okay. Will you raise your right hand? You saw my firm subject to the pains of pedigrees of perjury testimony. We were out to get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I do. Okay. I noted that our rules and procedures actually do have the assessor going first. So, okay. Why don't you give us a little of your description. Okay. Same thing as before. We have the initial value was set on the property of 446800. The property only did come to the formal agreements by telephone. No changes were made. We have a brief description of the property. 1.28 acre lot on Dara Street. The neighborhood is considered traffic good, so there is that traffic factor. There's a description about the property that we have. Built in 1960 homes rated in good condition. There is 1800 square feet of above grade finish. Concrete basement is roughly 50% finish. And I've combed it out to, excuse me, three neighbor, neighboring properties. As you can see, 29 of the terrace, three crest view and 22 pinewood. The important factor is over on the right-hand side of the conditions and the dollar per square foot that these homes have sold for when compared to the subject. Subject is assessed at $237 a square foot. It is comparable to the first and second sale. Number... The first sale is a neighboring property and it's a recent sale. So I think that's probably the best comparison as far as real estate goes, real estate sales. And as far as equity comparables, again, we've got three comparables, but they're assessments. These are equity policies and not sales. Number 28 terrace, again, it's a neighbor at $262 a square foot. So it's a higher assessment than the subject property. Number three... I'm sorry, the third equity count, number eight pinewood has an assessment of 316. As I spoke earlier, anything after April 1st I don't include it because that's the cut-off date for the grand list. But eight pinewood has since sold for $470,000. And that one is the... the price per square foot on that one is $272. So it's below the three equity comps that I have. So I feel that it's compared reasonably when compared to market value and equitably when compared to neighbors. Okay, thanks. And that's it. I wouldn't argue that the assessment is correct. I doubt there's very few houses in one period that would not sell for the assessed value or perhaps quite a bit above. I would argue that perhaps a lot of my neighbors, their houses were under assessed. You know, just all you had to do was thumb through the grand list and you could see that most houses went up 50, 60, 65%. Mine went up 93%. And, you know, and it was the highest in neighborhood except for one house across the street which was sold and a tremendous amount of work was done since the last assessment. I bought our house in 2000 right after that assessment at 114,000. And in 2010 I was assessed at 230,800, over 100%. But I fully understood it because the house needed a lot of work. I had major foundation work. I put in a new heating system, a new deck, a new roof, a new driveway and, you know, work on the inside. So the overwhelming amount of work that I put in the house was before 2010. It's just the comparable values compared to my neighbors. Ours is skyrocketed. Now, as far as Territory goes, where we live, the traffic is terrible. It's a truck route going all the way up. It's way worse. I consider it the least desirable area in our immediate neighborhood and obviously many other neighborhoods like the Meadow or other places are much quieter and much better. So if I could jump in, so are you saying that you don't think your house is worth what the current assessed value is? The way the market is, I'm sure that every house in the city unless they had major problems would sell for at least whatever the assessed amount is. What I was saying is if you consider 4468 a fair number, then I would argue that many of my neighbors were under assessed that their houses would go for more percentage-wise of the assessed value than ours would. Especially on side streets, you know, places like Clare and Annav and Dairy Lane, Dumpatrick Circle, Deerfield Drive, those are much more desirable neighborhoods. Pinewood is a very quiet, dead-end street. I was really quite shocked to see that my .28 acres was assessed at 98,000 when it's one of the smallest lots and, you know, many of my neighbors have bigger lots and then I see some other neighbors that have substantial amount of land, good land, and their assessments definitely don't reflect that. Okay, thanks. Anyone have any questions? Just back to the trying to understand kind of the neighborhood value and what you call the traffic good or something, from one of your comps, ones which just looking at the data not what we should not be looking at after it occurs. It makes sense to me that Pinewood will be a much higher value than on Tara Street, Mr. Blatch, for this point about traffic and kind of the way that street is treated. Can you give us insight into kind of why that wouldn't be the case or why you have that as a con? Yeah, that will be reflected in the price per square foot because the .22 Pinewood is going to sell for a lot more 371 a square foot with the subjects at 237, the neighbors at 315, so that those neighborhood discrepancies will show up in the square foot, the dollar per square foot adjustment. I would argue that Clarendon which runs parallel with Tara Street but has way less traffic, you know, that would be the same argument there not to mention some of the other upper side streets and whatever. Let's see. Do we have other questions? Rosie then Kim. I have a question about the letter you submitted. There's a reference here at the end to number two and I didn't know if that was another address that you were referring to. I'm sorry. I don't have a copy. I don't know what you meant by number two. If it's not another address that's fine. I just wasn't sure. No, I'm sorry. Kim. Is 29 Tara Street adjacent to you? It's down a little bit. Yeah, it's a couple doors down the numbers. The odd evens don't line up exactly. Correct. It's across the street, right? Yes. Well, it seems to me it's a little bit smaller than yours. Yes. Pretty good value when they sold it. Yes. I don't know that much about the house but I do know that the previous owner had put in a lot of work shortly before she died intended on using part of the house as an Airbnb. I know it's I know it's got a much bigger lot, you know, much flatter but other than that I don't really know that much about the house. That's something that maybe Steve and Wendy could elaborate on, you know. I wonder if the assessor has any comments on that. On the sale, I saw the pictures that I saw me on the list like it was a much inferior condition for the subject. As I'm sure Mr. Heap anytime there's a listing I can look at the subject house was not in good condition. It wasn't in as good in my opinion but the reappraiser contractor gave it a good condition which would be the same as yours. Right. I mean I I remember when I heard how much the house was sold for I was shocked. But that's you know there's probably 10 15 houses in the area sold in the last two or three years and every one of them surprised me about how much they sell for so my attitude going in to this whole process was it's like, you know, I know people it was like there was no way they were going to put the assessors in they didn't want anything to do with it but with me it was like come on in I got nothing to hide my thinking was it's like I didn't really care what my house was assessed at I only cared how it was going to affect my tax rate and I never dreamed that mine would go up 93 percent whereas most of my neighbors would be in the 50 to 60 percent range which has jacked up our taxes considerably and that's the part that I feel is unfair. Any other questions or should we just get volunteers for a committee I'm happy to get I don't swear about it Kim, Lauren were you raising your hands Lauren and Sal alright the committee will be in touch with you thanks for coming in thank you so we can skip over I think we had a carpenter ready J.D. Carpenter can you pass your sheets out now so I can have them when you're talking maybe you can invite them and have them this was coming do you saw them in your room so they picked the pains and penalties the testimony you were about to give was the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thanks for coming this is when I reviewed myself I didn't realize I was on the VCA until last week so we have okay but I never heard back from you so she called to try to get you help with the appeal or something fair enough yeah okay okay Mr. Assessor okay so same thing here this one was a little trickier, it's a one bedroom home this carpenter is very strong to let me know it is a one bedroom home it's a tough one I did comp it out to a condo just because one bedroom homes do sell what I focus on with these is square footage a lot of times in my experience I have found a lot of people will take a two bedroom home knock a wall down and turn it into a one bedroom it can be turned back into a two bedroom so I'm focused more on square footage than I am the bedroom is going to remedy essentially I've got three good comps plus the condo that's taken away I wouldn't put too much credence in it but it's just to show that one bedroom homes do sell the assessment on the home the home is $352,300 that was the original value set by the reappraised contractor we didn't see any need for change the home is rated as average to good so it's kept up in a pretty big condition so I found other average to good or good homes to comp it out to and as you see they are selling in the $253 a square foot on up to $371 so I think the comp the subject at $349 per square foot of assessed value it falls right in that range as far as sales so I feel like it's comped out okay as far as sales go equity comps they're up in a good neighbourhood there we have that one that one's a mid-very good lots start up there at $140,000 an acre so we try to use other equity comps that are in similar neighbourhoods and as you'll see they're in the $221 to $283 range and it is of note worthy which again this is after April 1st but there is a neighbouring property that sold for $445 and the assessment on that one is $322 so one of the things that I do is I'm trying to show the trajectory of how the real estate market is going in Montpelier and it's not slowing down even though we are doing drop-dead data of April 1st anything afterwards is not considered but it does show that the real estate market it has been hot for three years and it hasn't really slowed down much so by putting that neighbouring comp in there I think it kind of shows how the real estate market is still going thanks Ms. Carpenter I'm here because my appraisal is higher than other comparable houses in my neighbourhood and I just want to know why and I want somebody to explain that and you'll see I made a spreadsheet in my paperwork and you can see all these I picked six homes that are comparable ones on terrace a couple on maybe Clarendon one, two, three on Clarendon and two on Hubbard Park and if you look at my spreadsheet you'll see that all of these other houses have what I have plus much more and the only thing I have more is my lot but it's swampy so I think what I've got here is pretty self-explanatory that I just want to know why so if a committee were to go out and expect you're getting this picture now we appoint a committee and go out to look at the properties you would say that these other properties you list are good points of comparison for the committee to look at well I think so or I wouldn't have picked them sure anyone have any other questions just want to affirm that you're not contesting any of the information that is on your property part you agree that that is correct yeah it's more just what your property is more relevant to the ones that you're showing us I just I have what they have plus they have so much more seven rooms three bedrooms look at them all they all have three bedrooms what do I have I have one my bathroom is a three quarter bath because I don't have a tub and I have the least square footage and you can see from my spreadsheet the assessed values are different the difference in those and I just feel like I have the smallest house but it's assessed the highest and I know that Marty told me that assessed values are determined by using a three-year study on market value transactions in the city and applied to each property so I'd love to see that study that's behind the scenes in the computer I can try to extract it and if someone could explain it to me why mine is way up here and others are much lower yes sorry so I do have a question about the the square footage the price for square footage I understand but is there some way a one bedroom house is not just I'm not sure it makes sense to apply just a standard math formula to a one bedroom house to a three bedroom house because it's just the value of a three bedroom house to put a family in it one bedroom is it's not just that it's a smaller square footage it's how you can use the house if you're wondering how that factors in and your comparables aside from the yes they all have more than one bedroom they do but they're all in the same square foot range so if you're talking about a three bedroom home if you have a three bedroom home then you're probably going to jump up to at least 1500 square feet and like I said before when you're in that thousand square foot 900 bedroom walls can be put up easily I've seen I don't know how many times over the years people taking a three bedroom home turning into a two or a one all down walls come up they go down so I personally was not in this carpenter's home I don't know the situation could it be turned into a two bedroom I don't know I honestly don't know but you know these are all the closest sales I can find in the socks does that make sense at all bedrooms can be added do you know how many one bedroom houses there are in the city when I was running comments on this there was I brought most of the condos there are a bunch of one bedroom one bath that I brought to his attention and mine just was over all of them I believe those were little older homes there was a tiny home in there I don't know they had what I had and more another thing I will throw out there my house I love my little house it's a cute little house it's a prefab when I purchased it was a prefab so I'm just disagreeing with this and does the fact that a house is a prefabricated house have a bearing on sale prices in my experience I've never seen if you're talking about a manufacturer yes absolutely all day long I've lived in one I've had one for years I've never seen a sale price difference okay and I'm not disputing when I talked with Marty about oh you could get so much more for it well that's just not the point the point is it the way it's assessed compared to these other comparable properties in the neighborhood so that's why I'm here tonight alright thanks do we have three volunteers does the square footage include the garage no any other questions are we ready to go to volunteers Mary Bob and Donna I don't have a volunteer friend oh okay I don't know their names could I get those please Rosie can do it Mary what's your last name Cooper Bob Gross I'm sorry Bob Gross thank you so again they'll be in touch with you arrange time to visit the property okay so thanks some of you sorry okay next up um could you pass me some oh I did have one more question sure okay tell me about this um neighborhood code yes every neighborhood is given a designation so they're going to differentiate mine's MV so yours is what does the MV mean so what they do is they will set up based on sales what land is selling for in each neighborhood land in Monterey doesn't sell a lot so sometimes it can be an extraction method so an acre of land in your neighborhood would sell for $140,000 but because of the size of it it's adjusted down to $198,000 so neighborhood codes are given to come up with values for the land okay okay thank you I just want to say I think what I've presented to you is very self-explanatory um I hope you can consider thanks very much everyone okay Frank and Rachel caribou hmm okay do you oh okay okay okay okay so as a necessity go first yeah so the subject lot was um it did have a whole lot years ago it is a 0.12 acre lot of land on River Street with contamination um the report dates back to I don't remember exactly when it was on the property but there is a contamination report being 10 to 15 feet of of contamination because I mean 10 to 15 feet for 10 to 15 feet below the surface 10 to 15 feet below the surface okay got you the previous assessment was $2,200 uh the reappraised contractor bumped it up to $4,300 given the fact that there is contamination there um I have attached with all of the handouts a list of 140 145 plus or minus sites in Montpelier alone that has some sort of contamination um we all know about the form of car lot we all know the contamination stories there it's 148 sites that are um currently either being monitored or they were discovered and remediated a lot of them date back to UST underground storage tanks when they used to put um uh heating oil in underground storage tanks um the first there's five of them that have homes on them now that are or were part of the contamination report um and there are equity accounts that show that there are people that still live on homes with uh some sort of contamination on the list should be attached um to that there is a substantial adjustment made for the contamination um the neighborhood code over there is um traffic heavy because it is on river street we all know how river street is right now um uh a building model over there is self or 65,000 but because of the contamination there's a 90% deduction in value um for the contamination which brings it down to $4300 um I did dig through old records and I don't see anything about the city paying the taxes on the set property um the city has been receiving tax payments from the appellant um all along um so I think that's about it for this parcel there were no taxes on it in the beginning the only time it was taxed is when you started um I mean the contamination was bad enough that our house was destroyed and the dirt was lugged off in a specific way because it was so contaminated um couldn't fit to live in so I don't see why it's still on the end list I mean it's not saleable we tried to sell it years ago to somebody that was buying the house next door their attorney wouldn't let them take that responsibility on um so it's your opinion that the property is worth zero? yes it was supposed to be taken off the grand list we appealed it before and the censor just said that you've been paying taxes on it right along is that right? once that Marty started giving it a value we appealed it then too we went back in records and found that there's been payments regularly made a tax payment has been made on the property that's why I assume it's taxable somebody's been sending tax payment yes I paid the taxes but there was no taxes in the very beginning when this thing happened there's a lot that's on Berlin street that sat above us it had two underground tanks one gasoline and one oil and they weren't careful and they punctured both those tanks which ran down in our basement so is this the lot kind of right at the point between Berlin street and river street there was a house about three down and there's no parking left when they filled in that lot the driveway went away it was just a really tiny one car driveway anyway but it's gone okay we have any question what can that lot be used for are there any zoning restrictions on that that's not I don't know I couldn't tell you good question no one's going to buy it how do you know that it's remedial how do I know it's what are there any studies that show the contamination of remedial and at what cost I don't know I don't know if it's been remediated I know that there are you just made a statement that it was a remedial no I said there is a list of parcels that have had contamination that they remediated this has never been remedied then this property you don't make that I don't know if that one has been no it has not the state was going to put in this system and only turn it on if they needed to but they never did that they decided to they decided to just you know demolish the the whole building that was never remediated I think the question that Kim was asking was do we know if it would be possible to remediate this property check with the state of Vermont would cost a lot of money that would make it would that be listed in the brown fields would the state have this property listed I don't know I don't know I have attached what I think are all of the contaminated sites in the state because it's not in here that the state doesn't know any other questions yeah Mary Marty you said that there was a downward adjustment I think you said because of the contamination correct of 90% why 90% why not 50% or 100% that's determined by the contractor and I assume I don't know but I assume that something they extracted from the sale study I don't know for sure but those were just a few a way we can know what their assumptions were I can look into it yeah I can look into it it strikes me that there must have been some basis for making the decision of that nature I think it will just cost I'm exaggerating to make a point you know $10,000 to remediate the site so it has a value or it would cost $10,000,000 to remediate the site and it has a different value I don't think they look into the cost to remediate but somehow that goes to what the how developable it is it isn't that part of how we would assess a piece of property so what I think they're saying here is that there's only 10% of it it has to be assessed at something so 90% of it is currently on global because of the contamination that's the way I understand could it be assessed at could you do a 99% deduction honestly I've never done it so I don't why can't it just be written off the green list Bob 90% what was used in the 2010 and they just continued with it I'm just wondering good question I don't have the 2010 I don't have the 2010 property record card with me and I know it's I know it's not safe to grow anything on to eat because I mean I just don't know who would buy it, who would want it who wants that responsibility the city was supposed to take ownership of it I remember discussing this property at some point in the past and but I don't remember exactly what it was maybe it was 2010 and I don't remember exactly what we did or what the outcome was and I'm wondering if we have any records anywhere in the last times came before this body and what the circumstances were what the reduction was and what the decision was that was made that would be helpful to me I looked through the record cards for any decisions that were made previously on this I spoke briefly to Bill Fraser about it and it did go to Beverly Hill and she said she's been that's why we decided to afford with it because she said someone has been paying taxes on it what else could I do, you built me did you know I may not pay it this has been going on for years I know but it's not enough, it's time to stop but what he's saying is Marty the Assessor has not been in his position for years and so when you said you only started getting filled for it when Marty was the Assessor well he's only been in the job for a year who was the Assessor way back, he didn't fill us well I can't tell there's been a sequence of Assessors I can't tell who might have started sending you Bill and it's not the Assessor that sends the Bill, it's the Tax Collector but it seems like there's some research that could be done I mean if you find somebody to buy it, I'll sell it I don't want it anymore I don't want the responsibility of had it it was a horrible process all the workers got sick we were trying to do work on the basement all the workers got sick it had to be shut down just procedural can the Assessor come in and give us new evidence like do you want to instruct him to go back and find out more about the history of what happened here I guess we could instruct him I mean somebody come in here and tell me that they don't have any idea what it would cost I'm ready to go with the appellant I don't know why we need to give them the chance to go out and get such obvious information I don't know about the property nor my name anymore, the city needs to take ownership of it Mary I understand how really frustrating this must be I think there's kind of two issues here what is there what is the proper value that should be placed on it and then there's I'm imagining that you could also separately unassociated with what we're doing here saying to the city is there a way that you can take this off the tax rolls or do something about it I don't know if that would be through the abatement process but there may be issues and our job is to figure out what the right value is I'm a little stuck in trying to figure out if there's a value in what it is because we don't have all of the information which is kind of Kim's point we can either go with what we have before us we could ask for more research and then the other part of it is that in a property tax appeal or an assessment appeal the taxpayer has the burden of approving that the assessor is wrong and that it should be some value other than what the assessor says it is and that ultimately comes down to after we have an inspection of the property and a report what does this body vote for what we determine the market value of the property is and so I think the points are very from my point I just don't get it who's going to buy it can you find me a buyer there's a list of over a hundred parcels on here that do have the damnation that have sold or have people living on them so there is value to it we tried to sell it okay someone want to volunteer to be on this committee Mary Sal and I'm sorry Mark okay great I think we're set on this one okay thank you you'll be here in the community alright Steve and Wendy they're out do you sound like a burden subject to the pains and penalties of perjury that's not what you're about to give the whole truth and nothing else alright similar to the other property we had on Territory the dale home at 28 Territory was given an initial assessment of $391,500 we did see the property owner for the informal premises no changes were made the home is a one-story ranch built in about 1957 it's rated good condition has 1,494 square feet of finish they have one full bathroom a three quarter bath and four bedrooms the basement is 85% finished the home is graded as C so it's an average build but it's in good condition the three homes that I commented out to are the neighbor at 29 Territory street that we were speaking about earlier the previous owner was rumored to be selling for an Airbnb that was sold at $410,000 or $315 a square foot it's also in good condition when compared to the subject at $262 a square foot the other two are also in the neighborhood at 375,400 2,000 they're in slightly inferior condition but the 22 pinewood the price per square foot is going to be higher because it's smaller equity comps on the next page again we have two neighbors 30 and 32 terrace they're coming at 235 and $350 a square foot respectively the subject is assessed at $262 a square foot 8 pinewood again after April 1 but again it shows a trajectory of the real estate market that one is assessed at $272 a square foot so it appears that based on equity comps in sales comparison I feel like the home is equitably and fairly assessed at $391,500 okay thanks I didn't hear the two you said the two comparables are 29 terrace oh I didn't see this okay thank you so on the first page there you have 29 your neighbor and 3 crest for you and 2 pinewood road 22 pinewood road 22 pinewood okay thank you all for the opportunity as I sit and look at you all doing this work thanks for doing the hard work of the people of Montpelier I know this probably isn't fun duty we've lived in Montpelier for 38 years we've lived in the same house never appealed an assessment before our last appraised value was set at $208,900 when viewed in the context of neighboring properties that was a fair appraisal the current proposal is 391 5 that figure relative to the values in the neighborhood is not fair nor is it reasonable and I'm interested in this comparable sales information because it's a little slant and a little snapshot of a couple things when in fact there are many properties in our neighborhood houses that were built at the same time our house was built all with on the first floor three bedrooms and one bath on the top floor and with varying configurations on the downstairs floor so there's many comparables and there are many that are in a whole different class in terms of the dollars so that's what I want to talk about but before I get into the specifics of those there were two things for context one of them echoes the comments of Joe Blatchford normally I don't worry about these things if proportion it's all proportional but our rate when our appraisal went up 87.4% and the average in the city is 53 or something closer to that and most of the houses in our neighborhood went up in the neighborhood of 48 to 55 so my question is why and that's it ought to be apparent why that is obviously if you put on an addition there are things that are obvious that alter your relativity with your neighbors but nevertheless the second big issue is concerns about clarity in the process I've been pouring through all the information that you guys make available online and thank goodness it's all there and you can spend endless hours looking at those things and I had the occasion to speak with Marty who was very helpful but it is not clear to me how this formula works and which variables make the big difference so we had this whole discussion about neighborhood codes a few minutes ago and our neighborhood code is XG and so there is no key to the codes that I can find and I called Marty and asked him and he said there was not really a key to the code I said is there a hierarchy of the keys to the codes from most desirable to least desirable because I'm assuming the purpose of the codes is to sort of grade we live 30, our house is 30 feet from terrace street stand out there at 8 o'clock in the morning and it is a thoroughfare and the dirt that accumulates in our kitchen from the trucks and buses and everything else going on I love terrace street, I love Montpelier I'm not I'm glad I live where I live but when you're looking at comparative comparables and we are very familiar with Pinewood which is one block away from us which has a double cul-de-sac and no zero traffic how that isn't a significant factor isn't that clear to me and how it is that you can't go on the website and say here is the hierarchy of specifications so I don't know what XG means and I don't know what it means relative to all the other codes and there's like many codes and I loved it early whatever and later good traffic on one of these sheets it says traffic good on terrace street I said yeah traffic is really good because there's a lot of so if I understood it and if I understood what impact I made on the formula I would probably be making a case to you about that but I don't know enough about it so I'm just I'm suggesting that the board might want to ask for those codes so that you can determine relativity a second concern in terms of the process is this notion of depreciation level when I talked to Marty he had indicated that our house was in pretty good shape and that we had a depreciation level of 14.9% I said relative to what you will not find that figure in any of the stuff on the website at least I couldn't find it on any other property so when I was doing the comparables I couldn't say mine's 14.9% but my neighbor's 21% and the other neighbor's 32% I mean maybe it's there somewhere but I couldn't find it in any of the information available on the website so it's a number that may be of significance I'm not sure if it is or how it plays into the formula so if mine's 14.9% and I was going to make the case that boy relative to some criteria it's really 25% and if that's going to make a substantial difference then we'd want to have that discussion here but I don't know what it means so I'm thinking that Marty implied that our house is in better shape than many and so therefore our depreciation is only 14.9% but I don't know what that means so because I can't really get into those items I want to share the two issues that I put in the letter that we sent to you first of all the way I read all the materials I believe there's an error in the data relative to our house it says I have all that information I think I gave it all to you again it says that we have four bedrooms and two baths on the first floor level we only have three bedrooms and one bath on the first floor we do have other spaces on the lower level, the below grade level if you look at probably the 50-60 houses built during the period 57 to 65 you will find countless properties that have that formula you'll see them on the three bedrooms on the first floor one bath and then there's a whole lot of stuff that is below the level but it's not clear to me in all the data that's available how any of that is weighted so ours says four bedrooms and two baths we have three bedrooms on the first floor we have three bedrooms on the first floor we do have a finished bedroom downstairs but I know for a fact that there are houses on Pinewood that are rated maybe $80,000 less that have bedrooms downstairs and they show three in one so there isn't I believe there is an error in the data and there's certainly an error in ours and I know of one very well that has two bedrooms downstairs so they got the the but there's no real mention of that so that's sort of the first question mistaken the data the second is our assessment comparable to others and so I listed a number of others which are not in Marty's list first of all I will mention on Marty's list 29 Terrace Street is a bed and breakfast she completed she completely finished the lower level was an operating bed and breakfast in fact we rented it a few times for family members so I'm not sure it's comparable bed and breakfast is different than Airbnb though I don't know what it is but it has a full kitchen it's upstairs it's a single family home but the downstairs is a fully completed functional apartment that people rent and has kitchen and bedroom and living room and place and so on and so forth so it's not really comparable but the ones that I listed here I'm going to start with and by the way I'm assuming this isn't about increasing anybody else's taxes this is about comparing because that's what really matters here is comparability so Pinewood Road is a double cul-de-sac generally larger lots some much larger lots and their structure is the same as ours built in the same time frame in some cases by the same builder so Pinewood shows three bedrooms and one bath on the first floor and we know for a fact there are two finished bedrooms downstairs in that building the lot is much larger than ours twice as large much quieter street their appraised value in this process is $400 ours is $391.5 I would ask you say I don't know how your process works because you're welcome to come to our house we'd love to have you come and look and our house is a nice house but the point I'm making is relativity with our neighbors not whether you like our house or whether it might sell for $390 if somebody put it on the market tomorrow the issue is comparability $316 is it's big right next to at the end of the cul-de-sac the big lot 7.78 acres again three beds on the top one bath I don't know what their downstairs look like but the structure of the house is such that it has a functional downstairs but I don't know how you judge these things where people haven't been in the house and I don't know where that data is I tried to figure out the on the web exactly how you describe lower level talk about percentage that's complete or percentage that's finished but the question is is it bedrooms, bathrooms or storage or big living or whatever it is so it looked to me like there wasn't a lot of analysis on the lower they're 3128 10 pinewood right next door to 8 pinewood three bedrooms, one bath on the main level you can, when you stand in front of the house there's a garage underneath part of the house and there is what appears to be a bedroom window and an entrance to the left don't know, I can't swear to it but their appraisal is 281 280,100 18 pinewood shows two bedrooms and one bath on the main level may well be another bedroom in there but again, their appraise value with the four and the one 3324 21 pinewood you can just go right down through here 3176 one crest view which is down the street from us four houses shows four bedrooms and one bath appraise value 328 right across the street from crest view three bedrooms and one bath appraise value 3135 so I'm asking the question about we're being told the data says four bedrooms and two baths and then it has our appraisal of 391 5 and there's all these other properties that may not have sold in the last year may not show up on here but that are all in the more 320 category which is about a 53% increase in the appraisal from the previous one as opposed to 87 so I can't I don't understand where the 87 came from and I would make these two cases to you thank you technical question do you how many bedrooms do you have in the house is it four bedrooms it is four bedrooms and it has three bedrooms upstairs and the fourth one is in the lower level it's under it's below grade level low grade level and on the concrete floor are there two means of egress from the house from the bedroom downstairs two means of egress there yes there's a window in the bedroom okay as there isn't all these houses that are built into the pinewood side and on the terrace side so that can be counted as a bedroom because it has a window that's big enough for someone to climb out of right but so do these other houses that I'm describing to you my point is not I mean my house is my house we have four bedrooms we have two beds and but most of the other houses on our street I can tell you the way it's supposed to work is um the square footage that will show up on your car is above grade the room count is the total house that's the way it's supposed to some things may have slipped through there may be bedroom counts that are incorrect that's the way it's supposed to work is the room count that's on your record card is all of them in the basement but there is also a separate line for the finish lower value in bank work anything below grade is adjusted at all as one for some reason I don't know why but with city work it's separated out so the room count should be total of the entire property but they're 1494 square feet finished area that's only the above grade gotcha any other questions just to help you you were learning about truck that can be parsed out on the property record cards online you can search for those you can find what they mean it says they all say neighborhood code XGMV you should print right on and you can sort it by all XGs I did but the question is what does it mean and is one more desirable than the other does it mean that your taxes are higher than the other should I contest it is it a significant variable or is it an insignificant variable I guess one way to parse out desirability is you can sort it by order so you would probably find that college street would be at the top of the list right on the dump but how do you know it's the top of the order so the assessed value would be higher there shouldn't be there shouldn't be a game to figure it out if it's not an important variable we shouldn't even have it on there if it's important and if it makes a difference in your appraisal you ought to know what it means well and if someone were to call me up it'll say right on their record card it tells you exactly what it is XG is traffic good traffic good but what does that mean what's traffic bad and would you have high traffic but you're in a good neighborhood I think I have a question that might help this somewhere it's not on this list but somewhere there must be documentation for the program that creates this system like I think I got it for the camera system one time years ago so in that documentation you could probably find like a table of all the neighborhood codes and what they mean if it's an important variable that changes it we ought to know what they mean and traffic good does not communicate well it does because there's traffic average traffic fair it still doesn't communicate I'm talking about the receiver not the center it does not mean anything to a citizen that says oh my neighborhood is traffic good you're saying it's traffic bad but good neighborhood but I didn't know what it meant and I didn't even know it when you told me so it's just feedback I kind of want to argue one other thing we were talking about is depreciation we were talking about two comps because we gave your opponent pretty low depreciation 14% I can say and you were counting it out to number 8 Pinewood number 8 Pinewood has twice the amount of depreciation just that's the that's the condition that the re-appraisal contractor came up with and that makes a $50,000 difference in assessment so that's where you're going to see a lot of the disparity is because you do have a nice home and you hadn't made it as much on the phone so I still have the question then I don't believe and please correct me if I'm wrong I don't believe the depreciation figure is generally available if you were to call me up and say here's the process on the website it may not be on the website but I can send it to anybody it's all public record because it wasn't on the website and because I was preparing for this appeal and I don't know what it's relative to so 14.9% okay but is really good 2% or is really good 20% and based on what I mean is it like just looking at I said that's a 20% or that's a 10% or there's some criteria a brand new home it's going to have an excellent rating it's going to have zero depreciation as a home starts to age if you did nothing to your home you'd probably be in the 50 to 60 to 70% depreciation because you've done the work to it so a lot of it is a little subjective but there is a science to it and as I remember I think it's interesting to be discussing some of these points at the very beginning of our process because these things come up over and over again but as I remember there was a figure for physical depreciation and then there's a separate figure called economic depreciation and I don't remember what the difference was there's different ways to apply depreciation you can apply physical depreciation if you're not keeping up your home economic can be that's typically seen with a business if there's some sort of an impact like flooding that's having an economic impact on the property you can have an external obsolescence we're going to talk about that at the next meeting where someone lives across the street from an undesirable subdivision so there's an adjustment for that as well so there are three different types of depreciation any other questions a couple of questions so one is is there a disagreement now about the accuracy of the property record or is it there was originally the argument that the the card is wrong and it should be listed as three but we're hearing that there are four bedrooms and Marty is saying that it is accurate to list it as four and they'll also know more about our below grade is that Marty hearing this there's nothing inaccurate about the property record correct excuse me can I if that if the description is the description of my house I don't contest that however I know there are houses that are showing as three and one that have below grade with two forms of two places of egress in fact I would guess there are many in my neighborhood if that is a big factor in this I'm not sure how you all as a board get a handle on that because you're not checking on other people's places that you're checking on mine but it is a serious issue in a neighborhood that's all built into hillside with the same dynamic so I just it's unfair to list mine as four and one and not the next door neighbor or the people in the next block you're showing them as three and one because nobody looked at it nobody paid attention I'm not sure why but it's it's a problem it's an unfair problem there could be some that have slipped through the crack for sure my process was very good keeping track of permitting the permitting process anytime homes were renovated or bedrooms were added they did update the record card and like I said before the reappraisal contractor got into 75-ish percent of the homes so I believe to be accurate if they're not then we certainly correct them as we find these things out the grand list is like it's a work thing it's always involved there's always changes to be made and some of these could have slipped through oh sorry Rosie got it so you could raise another issue in your letter which is about your garage and your portion of the adjacent property are you saying that the garage is built on the adjacent property or is just closer than yes so if you I mean again if this is measurements I don't know if this is all about measurements the measurements are 0.26 acres is what I have what is not clear if you were to walk into some of you may walk into our house and when you look at our backyard we have a nice big backyard but a big chunk of my backyard including a corner of a garage that was built in this early 60s long before we were here was on state land at the time used to be state land then the city built a pumping station and ran its pipes down along our yard and has an easement for the pumping station that's that again you would think it's our backyard if you were to look at our backyard but it was on the state side with the city easement then the city sold Redstone to Goldman a few years ago and he now owns that so I don't if the property value is determined based solely on measurements that is the right measurement but the fact that a chunk of our backyard and a little piece of our garage have issues it's it may affect value I don't know what will happen someday when we sell our house but I don't know how you take that into account yeah I mean a map if you were to send a map over or something you would sort of parse that out I have a question I have is back to the number of bedrooms again the finished area that 1494 only includes the three of the bedrooms that's correct and so how do they will the car show us what the value is for that below grade it hasn't broken down yes yep Tim oh I thought I saw you raise your hand okay any other questions from anybody I I don't see the answer to that but I'm looking at this card I don't see I can show you where it is yeah Mary so Marty you said that the contractor got about 75% of the home of the properties are there any neighborhoods where the refusal rate that is significant so I'm trying to get at the issue that Mr. Dale was raising of golly I know for a fact a bunch of my neighbors are off do you know if our contractors manage to get into those those properties and this is a fair because we can't look at them but we can kind of yeah the contractor never came to me and said man I'm really having trouble getting into College Street really various streets giving me trouble it was very hit or miss apartments were tough on each record card there will be a record of the day that they were there and whether they came to access or not every parcel has that data thank you yes Marty describe like how big of a difference in the ultimate assessment is the number of bedrooms versus the square feet just this earlier with the one bedroom house if you seem to argue that the square feet matters a lot more I would say I've never seen a difference in three bedrooms, four bedrooms, two bedrooms it's all about the square footage the values in the per square foot so the way it's broken down is the total amount of bedrooms whether it's below grade or above grade are all piled into one and then there is a separate line which I'll show you where the value of the space in this game so you're saying that two buildings with the same approximately the same square feet one of them has two bedrooms, one of them has four bedrooms would sell for the same amount I've personally never seen a difference and I'm not saying that it doesn't happen in my years, I've never seen a difference it seems counterintuitive it does, it does absolutely well other than when you go to a house, you see some people come the bedroom, it's really a little study and you scratch your head and say where you take walls down it's really a square footage that makes you allowed to create more space okay, are we ready to appoint the committee one, two and more we've got three you're already on one okay, and I think that is it for tonight so now we can recess so next