Community manager frustrated over "unfair" assessments
By: By Meghan Backus
Updated: March 14, 2008
Some members of one Victor community are fed up. The town assessor has put a third proposal on the table for the Gypsum Mills Estates. He says he will assess the manufactured homes and property there at 70 percent of their market value, but the manager of the community says the offer makes matters worse – not better.
“I'm just not sure what we're going to do here,” said Bob Morgan of Morgan Management. “We're probably going to end up filing a grievance for 511 people. We'll probably take them to court.”
Morgan manages the Gypsum Mills Estates and says the affordable community he helped create could now be at risk.
“Because of this, people are scared,” he said. “We've had four people back out of deals that were buying homes. They backed right out of the deals!”
Town assessor Wayne Pickering says the manufactured homes are currently assessed at $41,000. In a previous offer, he raised the assessment to $50,000 and added on if the homeowner had a carport, single-car garage or double-car garage. That proposal raised assessments from around 30 percent to 50 percent.
He is now assessing the properties at 70 percent of the market value. That's good for some of the 500 homeowners.
“The smaller older homes decreased in value while the other homes increased in value,” Pickering said. “I'm sure I made some people happy because they weren't paying as much.”
But people like Don Kennedy will see his assessment increase from the previous offer. Under the previous proposal, Don Kennedy's home assessment would have gone up to $60,000. Now he could be paying $70,000.
Kennedy, who has become a spokesman for the community, admits Pickering's new proposal does help some of the seniors.
“Our concern was for the lower income people living on social security that have been living here for many years,” he said. “Their (assessments) will be reduced.”
Pickering says the assessments are not set in stone yet. But Morgan says he is prepared to go to court if a compromised can't be reached.
“We still have the informal hearings to go through and it could change again,” Pickering said.
“We're going to sit down with him and see if we can come to a closer agreement,” Morgan said. “I'm just not sure if we're going to get there.”
New notices for the Gypsum Mills community are expected to be mailed out by Friday.
