Water Mill Homeowners Object To Higher Assessments

Tax Grievance Day took place in Southampton Town on Tuesday, May 15, like it does every third Tuesday in May. But this year, Julie Fitzgerald rushed over to town hall to try to be first in line. Ms. Fitzgerald’s property assessment had already increased more than 17 percent since 2014, and now in 2018 her Water Mill single-family home’s assessed value jumped about 30 percent.

“Our neighborhood represents the epitome of workforce housing. We are the local workforce,” Ms. Fitzgerald said during a recent interview. “By raising our assessments by 30 percent, [the town is] going to force the local workforce out, which would seem to fly in the face of everything we read about the town’s need and desire for workforce housing. Our assessments have gone up every year. Other municipalities only assess when there is work done to the house to improve it, but Southampton Town has chosen to reassess every year.”

Out of the more than 51,000 parcels in Southampton Town that were assessed, only about 350 grievance applications were filed, according to Town Sole Assessor Lisa Goree.

Reassessments in the Town of Southampton are conducted annually, and all neighborhoods are done at the same time. Overall, the taxable value of the town was $67 billion, compared to $63 billion last year. Ms. Goree attributes the upward trend of property values to luxury homes sales and the large amount of construction on existing properties.

“Every time a property sells, we have to go out and verify its sale. If we have enough sales in a given area, that would either substantiate an increase or a decrease,” Ms. Goree said. “If we feel that our assessments are either above or under what the market is indicating, we will apply an adjustment, up or down.”

Hamlets are often divided into smaller neighborhoods for assessment, and neighborhoods that are south of Montauk Highway tend to be more desirable, and therefore assessed higher, than homes to the north.

“Say for instance, you have an area in North Sea. If we see that we have at least three or five sales in that entire area that are selling at 10 percent over what we have the properties assessed at, then we will apply a 10 percent market adjustment upwards for that area,” Ms. Goree said.

She noted that the adjustment applies to the whole area, not just to the homes that sold recently. That way, the whole area has assessments that are in line with what the real estate market is indicating.

Assessments in Water Mill north of Montauk Highway had big jumps this year. Homeowners on Farmstead Lane saw increases around 30 percent, while others on Deerfield Road saw 40 percent.

“It could have been the number of sales in that neighborhood,” Ms. Goree said, referring to the sharp jump in percentage.

Assessments south of the highway did not see a significant jump this year, as there was not a high volume of sales. However, assessments there did jump last year.

Nevertheless, homeowners like Ms. Fitzgerald’s neighbor Gary Aldrich say they’d never be able to sell their home at the value their homes are assessed at. Mr. Aldrich also grieved his tax assessment—a 27 percent increase.

“There is like 40 homes in [our neighborhood]. We are all local people. We aren’t double homeowners, whatever. We are just regular Joes. A bunch of us went down to grievance,” Mr. Aldrich said. “[The Board of Assessment Review] was very sympathetic to what I was saying, but the decision will be made in July.”

Mr. Aldrich said he tried to make the case to the review board that he had not had work done on his home in years, and the million-dollar sales around the block weren’t a reflection on his home.

“They are all bigger than mine; more land than mine,” Mr. Aldrich said, referring to his three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath home on a half-acre plot of land he bought with his wife, Linda, in 1992.

“Like I told the guy at the assessment office, you’re kind of enticing people to sell, and I want to stay here. You’re telling us all that our houses are worth such amount of dollars. Well, I am a millionaire now and I’m going to move down to North Carolina. But I want to stay. I think they are thinking about it the wrong way. They should take care of us: the workforce that wants to stay here.”

Mr. Aldrich, now retired, worked for the Village of Southampton Highway Department. Ms. Fitzgerald is the assistant to the village mayor.

Southampton Town Director of Housing and Community Development Diana Weir said last month that it has been the goal of Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman since the beginning of his term 18 months ago to try to stop the workforce from being pushed out by rising cost of living.

“There is a housing crisis for affordable housing,” Ms. Weir said. “This is not new. This has been going on for many years.”