Board of Equalization Meeting   5/12/2025

Okay.

We're ready.

I'm going to call over to the May 12th, 2025 meeting of the Board of Legalization of Albemarle County.

We have a roll call of members present, please.

Starting with Mr.

Okay, all members present, we do have a quorum.

Has everyone had an opportunity to review the May 1, 2025 minutes distributed by email last week?

Are there any corrections or proposed revisions to those minutes?

Move for approval.

All right, we have a motion to approve the minutes from the campaign one meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor?

All right, the motion passes unanimously.

Any other matters before we start taking up the hearings for today?

No.

Okay, very well.

So we will call the first hearing which is application number 33 by BSR Owner LLC.

And I will call to swear in with assistive

Let's see, so do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony both oral and documentary which you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you everyone for taking the time.

So this current case you have

This is our owner LLC.

It's a 101 unit fractured condominium, three stories high.

And this building was purchased in November of 2004.

The current investor purchased it for $11 million, for $94,828 a unit.

The current assessment is $18,432,700.

this year.

The reason for appeal, a few reasons.

One is the $11 million sale price that occurred in November 2020, this past November.

And the other one is an appraisal that was done by CBRE with the valuation of May 20, 2024.

Their appraisal for the subject property concluded a value at $9 million.

Just to go over part of the income and expense statements we provided on page five of our evidence packet.

There is a summary direct cap approach.

I just want to go over some of the

those figures and where we got them from.

So the gross potential rent is taken straight off of the rent roll.

The rent roll can be found on page 13 of our analysis.

The GPI from the rent roll as shown in the figure below is $1,660,089.

The actual gross potential rent that was collected based on the INE

was a little bit below that at 1,495,181.

But for the purposes of our analysis, we used the rent roll figure.

We used costar vacancy rate of 4.3%, which amounted to $71,384 of vacancy loss.

And for the expenses, the current actual expenses are $847,452, which is slightly above 50%.

However, in our analysis, we used 50% and

The reason for the high expense ratio is one, because of the current conditions of the property, 52 years old.

It had a slight renovation 18 years ago, but given the age and the, I'd say, lack of recent updates, it's expected to have a higher than average expense ratio, as long with the

As long with the historical performances of the property operating at a little bit higher than expected expense ratio.

On page 26 of our analysis, there's the settlement statement dated November 19, 2024.

just showing proof of sale for $11 million to purchase the 101 parcels.

And then beyond the settlement statement, there is CBRE's appraisal.

Don't want to go through the whole appraisal.

It's obviously very long, but just the key highlights for the appraisal.

Their cost approach, they ran an insurance replacement cost approach and their value concluded at $9,400,000 or $93,069 a unit.

That is on page 35 of the appraisal or page 64 of our evidence.

Their sales comp approach, just on page 40 of the appraisal, page 69 of our evidence.

That sale time approach concluded at $9 million, about $89,109 a unit, and the income approach immediately following on page 64 of the appraisal and page 9384 evidence.

It as well concluded at the same $9 million, $89,109 a unit.

and so the reason I want to call the appraisal is also CBRE's cap rate is they concluded a cap rate for their income approach at 6.5%.

This cap rate that we adopted in our summary analysis on page five and we as well added in, we took out the taxes from the expenses and we added in the tax rate of 0.854% to give us an overall cap rate of 7.354%.

and we are requesting a valuation.

We're not requesting the valuation of your appraisal.

However, given the sale price of $11 million, we are requesting a valuation of $11 million.

Thank you.

Good morning.

So we have 101 residential condominium units and they represent 42.08% of the total 240 units.

that comprise the villas at Southern Ridge Community.

They were originally developed in the 1970s.

In 2007, they were converted to condominiums.

The assessment for the 101 units is 18,414,200 effective January 1, 2025.

And basically the crux is that they're requesting that we look at this as a multifamily community rather than

condominiums.

Our argument is that the multifamily units represent an interim use.

We have the sales of unit sales in this development have ranged from 190 to 236, 602 over the past two years with a median sale price of 223,750.

So it would seem unlikely that this is the highest of best use as a multifamily community.

It would be

Highest and best use would be as individual unit sales to owner users.

And there's demand in the market for this because of the price point.

We have very little inventory that sells at this price point in this market.

So there would be no reason why you couldn't capitalize on these units by selling them out in the $200,000 unit range.

So the sales that we have were presented to you on page three of our app of our

Paper, and the value add on this project is really the renovation of it, and then potentially they could sell them out in the future.

We did look at the current income approach that was given by the tax representative, and they stated that market rent was, I believe, $3,270 a unit.

When we visited the property last week, I was told that unrenovated unit two bedroom units are now being leased at $14.86 per month and renovated units are being leased at $636 per month, $636 per month.

For three bedroom units, they now range between $1,922 and $2,065 per month.

So the market rent has changed significantly from the time in two months from the time that they purchased it to the time that they started releasing it.

The unrenovated units versus the renovated units appear to be a difference of flooring.

They've taken out some of the old flooring, they've put in new vinyl luxury tile flooring, that kind of plank-look tile.

They've painted, they've cleaned the carpets, and where necessary, they've replaced or are going to replace appliances.

but overall, you know, there's little change to the, no change to the footprint and very little change to the actual physical other than the carpet and the vinyl.

Also with regard to the expenses that were in the 2023 and the 2024 statements,

We were advised that now only trash is included in the rent, that water and sewer is being built directly to the tenants.

So there's about $100,000 in the expenses that was previously under utilities.

That has gone away.

And the trash is the responsibility of the condominium association.

So that would have been part of the $200 a month that all condo unit owners paid for.

I think the other issue with doing this as a multifamily is the intermingling of the units among 17 buildings, three stories high.

They're not all in the same buildings.

They're scattered throughout among the private ownership.

And then the question also becomes of replacement reserves.

Since there's a condominium fee at $200 a month, those exterior repairs and maintenance are being done as condos.

Anything else?

So the plan of that is that it's double dipping if you're including the condo fees and replacement reserves in your approach.

And the fact that

The owner of these 101 units do not control the condo association.

It's not common for an entire condo property to be run as apartments, but in that case, they control the entire property.

They don't even have control of that process in this.

They don't have a majority of the homeowners association.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, on the point that

on the point that was mentioned about these being as apartments.

So the 101 units are currently being operated as apartments, which is why we included an income approach.

However, if one would like to make the argument that these should be valued as condos and based on sales, I mean, there's nothing better than the sale of the subject property at

You know, being at $94,828 a unit, there's a pretty large delta between the sale of those units and the income, I mean, and the value of the income compared to the current assessment.

So, you know, based on that information and as well, the mention about the current marketing rents.

You know, generally after somebody buys a property, almost always, if there's a way to remarket the rents, most people will generally remarket the rents.

The current disparity between, you know,

The current marketed rents and the actual rents in place that were mentioned are about 20%, whereas the current disparity between the sale price and the assessment value is closer to a 60% disparity.

So I believe that given the percentage of disparity there, there's definitely still room for a reduction in value based on that information, based on the current market of rents as well.

And as mentioned, those aren't the current rents in place, those are the current marketed rents.

Looking at the current rents in place,

as of January 1st, 2025.

Those figures are the figures that are shown on page four of our analysis where two bedrooms are in the 1300 range.

And then the three bedrooms are between 16 to 1700.

Thank you.

Thank you.

C.B.

Richard Ellis on the appraisal.

Do they have an appraiser company that they are appraisers?

So it's an appraising company, a certified appraiser?

I have a question.

Previously, what methodology was used for the appraisal in previous years?

Was it as multifamily or was it as contest?

It's been as contest.

And the only thing that changed is the new company bought the property?

Correct.

Yeah, the new company bought those a hundred and one years ago.

They're privately owned and they can be sold and that's what these comps are.

No, they're currently being operated, these 101 units, they're currently operating them under the current ownership as a multifamily property.

The other 139 are privately owned by individuals.

Yes, those are the recent sales within the other 139 units.

They have a leasing office on site.

They do.

Zoning issues rules regulations where they can't be sold, why these units couldn't be sold on the open market, one at a time.

They're still renting them.

And they're still renting those.

The current owner is planning on keeping them as an investment for the time being.

That's their current.

They're in the process, obviously, of removing the flooring.

They plan to increase rents 10-20%.

But there is nothing stopping the current owners from changing and marketing these individually in the future?

No, absolutely not.

Can you tell me how many of them where the rent has gone up and how many really stayed the same?

That's a good question.

Currently, you know, the current basis on the rent roll, the current rents are at $1300 between $1300 for the two bedrooms, $1600 for the $1600 to $1700 for the three bedrooms.

So currently, I think for the ones that are vacating soon, then yes.

Country green.

Country green.

No, we don't know the timing exactly of when units have changed.

So we would agree that those were the original

Do we have any evidence that those rents were not accurate on January 1?

Otherwise, I think we have to doubt those.

What grant did you use on all of them?

We did not.

We used sales comparison.

That is, I believe.

That's what we got to get.

That's the point.

That is correct.

And I think what the applicant said a few minutes ago is that the current owner, it's his current plan is to keep them rented.

Life of risk, I'm not gonna try to value anything on what it's gonna be five, four years from now.

I think you gotta look at what it is right now when they bought it.

And I'm just going back and forth on them.

I mean, it's been assessed as a condo, individual units for the last seven, eight, 10, however many years.

I need to be persuaded why that's different.

I mean, it's less than 50% of the total unit count,

So the previous owner held these for how many years?

Like many, right?

No, for our properties, he had been there for quite some time.

When I spoke to the maintenance person, I think the maintenance from that company, the gentleman had been there like 27 years.

So that's a little concerning to me because it seems like you guys could have made that argument that he was using it or whoever owns the company was using it as an interim use for that entire period.

And then at the end, it was sold based on the interim use economics at a price that's mismatched with how it had been taxed.

And it seems to me that this is the same situation.

We can say it's an interim use, but plainly, at least in that case,

that conclusion wasn't worn out.

It was the only use for which they were put for the duration of the ownership.

So I mean, it was a farming community that somebody condominiumized.

I guess it's also, I'm thinking through like if 101 of these things actually came to market at the same time, it doesn't seem possible that we've achieved the sales figures.

I mean, there should be a glut of the condos.

It seems like they would sell for significantly less if we were trying to sell them at once.

for anything in our market.

That's condominium.

That's what it should be.

But plainly, they'd considered doing that and rejected it for some reason.

No, no.

Oh, I think Mr. Frob probably just didn't want to put the capital in to do it.

So he found somebody to sell it to.

And they always argued about that.

Before we could achieve the price of the market.

Again, I'd go back to what it was for the last however many years.

That's how it's been assessed for the last 20 years.

I'm open to a solution, I mean an answer, but I don't know what the answer is right now.

We do, and we have this in our write-up, we do have to make an argument to us about why you, legally why we should look at it as a multifamily instead of, can I ask that question?

It's obviously part of the law.

It's obviously parcel of this condos, however, it's operating as an apartment, has income statements as an apartment, management company as an apartment.

everything about it bought as an apartment so and when you look at the past few years in the past sales it's been sold as these 101 fractured units been sold as apartments so you know the way I look at it if

If somebody were to go to the investor and the investor wanted to sell, they wouldn't sell, oh, here's take one unit, take two units.

They'd try and sell 101 units.

So based on how the market would respond to a sale, the market would look at it as a multifamily as opposed to looking at it as a condo, and that's exactly what

on the introduction to the CBRE appraisal.

That's what the appraiser did as well.

The appraiser considered the 101 units as a multifamily as opposed to a condo.

It's not a multifamily.

I'm honestly not sure if the owner would sell to them or not, but seeing as, I don't think the owner would sell it for the price that, obviously they wouldn't want to sell it for the price that the other units are being sold at.

How would, if we changed this, how would it affect the privately owned condos

their value.

It wouldn't.

Well, wouldn't they have an argument to say, well, I own three units here and I'm renting them out and they're equivalent to these 101.

I mean, it is possibly a concern.

I mean, but it's kind of a circular argument.

There has been no other change.

There is a discount.

So is there any, how is the Assessor's Office typically handled like sale of, remember those big, that big portfolio of like low income housing that Charlottesville bought or like portfolios of single family homes or small multifamily that are all sold together.

So, well, generally,

But... Was a volume discount applied here?

That's in our 15% reduction.

The 15% I thought was for obsolescence, economic obsolescence, or something else?

These units have been multifamily always.

These are 101 minus?

Yes.

Yes, I believe these have been run as multi-family owned, always.

But they've always been assessed based on their value as condominiums.

Since they became condominiums.

When they were converted from a regular apartment complex, probably in one parcel, into 240 separate condos.

The basis of it?

What is the combination?

The 15% is the combination.

What factors?

The combination of condition and multiple ownership.

What percentage is the condition and what percentage is it?

And the condition is they haven't been renovated, generally.

I don't know that.

I was only allowed to see the model unit, which is an unrenovated unit, and then one renovated unit.

It's flooring, paint, cleanup of the kitchens, the cabinets.

No, they pretty much stay the same.

Their brown countertops are the same.

If they need to replace an appliance, they'll replace an appliance.

I think, was there some lighting, Billy, when we were there?

They were replacing some lighting?

Some, limited.

I mean, looking at the picture from what I see, I would guess that they were

So I mean I understand some people are going to go in, most people when they buy a condo they're going to do some people and I don't think it does that in anything from so any improvements would be between that and that.

Just trying to figure out the baseline to where you're getting this 50% Between those two things, condition and owning a chunk home.

Does anybody know what is typically owning a large portion, a large number of the same property?

Do we get to pick

I mean, there's a value for that.

I don't think that, I don't think we should change the method of assessment.

We should keep it as kind as whether 15% should be tweaked.

I'm not persuaded that I should be changed to multi-family.

I agree with that, especially if there is a discount for owning a large chunk.

Yeah, I think I agree with that.

It occurs to me that like the discount for lack of control, like the minority ownership discount for a single owner might be sort of negligible, but owning like 49% would be quite high, right?

And so similarly, I think owning 101, maybe there ought to be some greater consideration applied to that.

Cashport.

Yeah.

And so I understand why the Assessor's Office has valued these in the same way, in the way they did.

It is troubling to me that ultimately the price paid and interest earned on the profile of the investment from Mr. Fry was much different from how these were actually taxed historically.

And one might argue that it's overtaxed.

So, but I also am not persuaded that we need to adopt a multi-family for a portfolio.

There's like a line drawing problem and that's not exactly the right approach for me either.

I end up feeling like the 15% number is sufficiently flexible or that it could be adjusted as a way to

changing the assessor's approach from sales comparison approach to the income approach.

You know, I have a lot of control over this risk there.

And then there's also just, you know, there is a discount for bulk.

Mr.

It's already, 15% is already applied.

I guess if I were making a motion, I'd be making one to increase that 15% to something

I actually wouldn't want to just guess.

I'd want to know what the outcome would be.

I guess just roughly, is that applied to like the 12 or 13?

It's just that take on another 5 percent off.

I know, but sometimes that's apportioned to like buildings and not the land.

It is.

Unfortunately, we only have the one screener.

Basically, this is one of the units.

It's currently valued at $178,200 with the 15%.

And what did you want me to try?

We tried 20 first.

We dropped to $168,700.

Times 100, so it'd be a million.

You know, there's nine, I'm assuming three veterans out of us 101.

So I guess I would feel like something closer to 30% would be appropriate.

I think it would be about a $3 million reduction, 18 to 15 versus the 11,000 sales price.

I'm not, I think 30 is too much.

and the 25 rating.

25 would be about 2 million in gross reduction to 16.

All right, is there a motion?

I'll make that motion that we keep the assessment as condos but increase the discount from 15 to 25 percent for multi

Is there a second?

I'll second, before you vote.

And for clarity, I think there are a couple of units, the ones that were rebuilt after the fire and had nothing.

and so 10% bump should be two.

Okay, well, there's a motion and a second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

No.

So we will get to the exact number.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate everyone's time today.

Thank you so much.

Nicely done.

Thanks, Zach.

Okay.

We'll call the second application for J, application number 37.

I think the

I'm just going to wait 25% for Doug to come and do the math on them.

Okay.

We'll be clear about that.

That discount goes across land and improvements are just on.

Good.

That's where you end.

Jeff.

All right.

You solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony of an oral documentary which you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Thank you.

OK.

It won't take that long.

I'm just saying that I have a piece of property, landlocked, at my current house.

that I purchased separately after I purchased the house in front.

House in front is on three in the cool rakers right there.

There's just over three acres that's directly behind me.

Knowing that there was an easement through my property to that back property that you've probably seen, I got stayed here showing the proposed driveway of where to go.

So it seems like you guys think that my property is worth more than it is.

And I have a little chart showing the increase over the few years compared to my property.

and you guys bumped me up 41, almost 42% over the year before that, you know, and you're kind of saying, well, because it's like this valuable piece of property, I went and found all these comps within a mile of, as a crow flies, roughly, from where I live, so I'm not thinking from Southern Isle Mall or somewhere else in my area where properties are drastically different, you know,

Fortunately, everything would be exactly the same, apples to apples, you know, three acres, five acres, four acres, whatever.

But I feel like I'm being unfairly assessed higher for some reason.

You know, we don't even know if that land in the back is properly buildable.

You know, I don't have any desire to build on it, but I like, you know, maybe Albemarle County wants everyone to build condominiums.

Well I don't know what my area is but I know that you know everyone thinks that because these people have moved down here in the past couple of years from from DC and New York and they're spending insane amounts of money on properties that aren't worth what they're paying that therefore my property's got to go up when I've been living here in this county for 25 years.

I used to own a farm down in Schuyler.

I

This easement that was drawn from a previous owner, I actually took a video showing if I were to drive in my driveway and drive it across my lawn where this is, you're going to go right past, and I can show it, I don't know if there's any way, if you just want to look on my phone, you're going to go right past my living room.

And I don't know who's going to want to buy that piece of property and have to drive past somebody's living room to get to the parcel in the bath.

So I just don't feel like it's being assessed properly here, barely.

And so therefore I'm just asking to have that reduced because I feel if you don't reduce it, next year you're going to charge me another, you're going to assess me even higher, you know, every year it does go up.

of course.

So that's my, that's all I'm trying to say.

We'll hear from Ms.

Lesser's office.

So, the presentation are the kind of arguments that Mr. Bergish gave us originally,

said the property was landlocked.

We don't agree with them.

We provided that when this parcel was subdivided, that the access was legally provided.

I'm not sure what Mr. Berg is just talking about.

I don't know where his living room is in the house, but the subdivision was based on this very specific driveway, basically.

to the back lot.

Now, my understanding is this current driveway is not the one that would be used for the back, but we value the property as a buildable lot, which according to our community development office, the back lot looks fully developable.

It doesn't have any topo issues.

It's got this access.

We don't see any problem with it actually being developed into a home site.

Now, his desire not to actually sell it for a home site is a different issue.

We do reduce the value.

We value our vacant lots in the rural areas based on a home site and residual land, home site of two acres plus residual land.

We have

That is the way we value the back lot.

This parcel is Cismont, but we reduce the value by 15% because it's accessed through another parcel.

So we recognize that this isn't a lot with branch on the main road that we reduce it because of that.

There is a creek going through the back of it so wherever there was going to be a house if there was going to be a house you got a creek right below it you've got some strange gullies or on the way there so to build that driveway you're going to be having to do some major

We did adjust for TOFO as well for that back portion for the water retention overlay.

So, yeah, you can see in here.

Well, no, you can't because it stops.

There we go.

You can see on the screen there.

So you can see the main road up here.

There's the main road out here.

This is the access that goes through the front.

And so that stream and water protection area in the back wouldn't

wouldn't be in the way of any development access from the front.

There'd be plenty of room on this parcel for the home site.

That easement though is not what you talked through.

Okay.

We're having technical issues today.

Here we go.

This is the water protections due to the stream in the back.

So there will be issues with building something in this area, but this is a very small portion and it's out of the way.

It's not up in the front where you'd have to cross it.

That's where it might cause some problems.

So it's a relatively flat area and it's

Easily developable.

Any rebuttal?

Yeah.

where he was showing the axis is not what's drawn on this thing, on the actual plaque where it goes, it starts, it jots out, and then it goes right back in and it goes right past my living room, which is all the way on the right-hand side.

So I'm not gonna want someone driving past my house in the middle of the night to go to the house that's behind me.

And they're not gonna wanna be driving past my house.

So it's not a very desirable design.

Maybe they should have rethought this when they drew it in.

I don't know what the reason was.

That was done long before I was there.

But it is not a desirable building spot.

And I don't buy that at all.

It's desirable to me to have

opens, you know, having trees and having, you know, natural space because we have enough houses, you know, in the area.

And, you know, but I think I'm being unfairly, you know, why did it go, it went up, in 2018, it went up 15.76% from the year before, 0% the next year, 9%.

under 3% the next year, 2.76%, 17% in 2023, went down 4.38% in 2024, and then up 40, almost 42% in 20.

Where my house, it didn't go up like that.

My house actually only went up 4% from the previous year, you know, the front part.

So I know it's different, those are different kinds of properties.

One's got a house, one doesn't.

So why did it go up almost 42%?

Or any further questions?

Of course.

Currently it's assessed at $616,000.

Just the land.

Oh, I don't have that on me in front of you.

It's $177,800.

I'm on Clark's track.

I don't know.

That's not the myth.

Well, that would be different, yeah.

Yeah.

So it seems to me that I hear what you're saying, that no one's going to want to drive past your living room.

My guess is people will happily drive past your living room.

You just will not be happy about that.

Now you're getting into complicated, there's no way to vacate the easement on this because it's an agreement in the

You can actually mine them back together, but you can't just leave them separate and vacate the easement, is my understanding.

I don't think it's legal to not provide access to a parcel.

and both of them, even if you don't vote.

Which actually, I would take the, the state you did what you do, what you're saying you could do, you could easily give it back.

So you can't just take away the easement and say, okay, this is worth less and then suddenly put it back on and it's worth more and I sell it.

I think maybe hiring a journey to look at it would be a good way to go instead of listening to us spitball on anything.

I think, honestly, I think he's right about, you may not like somebody driving by, but buildable lots in Elmar County are so hard to come by somebody to pay for that property.

So, and that's what they have to assess it by.

Do you want me to sell it?

I knew you were going to say that.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is they have to value it based on what Mark

It's not us.

Well...

It's not.

Okay.

The policies that the super...

I'm running from here.

The policies that the supervisors have imposed on this county for the last 30 years are directly related to the value of land here.

It's land use policy.

And honestly,

There's not enough lots for the demand for people who want to move here, for whatever reason, the university, research park, whatever.

There's not enough.

simple, Simon, supply and demand.

So it sounds like you want the people who are living here.

I don't want anything.

Well, I'm just going to, I'm saying anyone other than me is that you want, is that the people that like, they don't care if we get pushed out because like, I got to just head out to another County because you guys just want to keep raising all the taxes on everything.

Okay.

We have more available land.

What if I had built smaller single-family houses on?

I have a question.

Yes.

The land is valued where its house is at 177,000.

Isn't that what I heard?

Yes, sir.

And the slot is 148,700.

Do we feel like there's

That much, it almost feels to me like there should be more of a discount for being back off the road and having to build that road to get back to it.

I don't know how do you calculate that?

We don't include the cost of building the driveway and the land bag.

That would be once it's approved.

And

We found that 15% is, you know, our typical access adjustment would be 10.

In this case, we're using 15.

They do go higher in certain situations, but we feel that 15% is appropriate and that the $30,000 difference approximately in value between the front and back line is appropriate.

And I agree with Samuel that, you know, this happens all over the county.

Well, yeah, I was asking how to arrive at the difference, because obviously, the one that fronts on the state road is more valuable than the one behind.

Absolutely.

In which case, there could be negatives to being closer to the road.

There could be.

But in general, we adjust down and we found in the market that those parcels in the back are lower, but not 50% lower.

So we have found that 15% is appropriate.

I also see you have a 20% discount for Topo.

We do have the, that's because of that water protection area in the very back.

That's only on the residual land.

So we've got the first two acres as a home site, and that's not adjusted for topo, but the extra 1.1 acres or so is adjusted minus 20% of that in the, under your flood plainer, correct?

It is, well, it was leased in the water protection area.

Let me see.

It's actually not in the floodplain at all.

Right, but I don't think you can clear trees.

but that's where they are, there's no restriction.

The only good spot where you can build a house is just above that line, by the way, because I've been back there.

I know it very intimately.

The front lot is flat.

It's awesome.

It's perfectly flat.

The back is not.

There's no flat spots down there.

It slopes down.

It's got weird little gullies that go right down through like a ravine or some sort that was there.

You would have to do a lot of building up just to get a road in there to do it properly and you know it is not flat land you know it's it's nice for what it is but you know take down if there's an oak tree that falls down it becomes firewood that's what that's what I use.

and these two parcels used to belong together.

They were combined at one point.

Two owners before me were the people who split it up.

I don't know what their intentions were, but you know, whatever, you know, I'm happy to have it.

You know, I like having that buffer space and I paid $40,000 for it, but less than 10 years ago, like seven years or eight years ago, 40 grand, you know,

If you're saying I got a great deal, I don't know.

But 148,000, no.

Why did it go up 41% in one year?

That was the change to the neighborhood, to the land adjust, the land rate for the neighborhood.

We found that we needed to come up on the land back is in this market area, which is market area 212.

So that happened in the entire area.

The entire market area.

Did his land fill up at the same time?

Both parcels would have gone up.

Was the land dying?

Yes.

As we work the reassessment in these market areas, you know, we have to balance how much we adjust the land and how much we adjust the improvement, the improvement adjustments.

So if you combine the two parcels, would his assessment go

It would actually go down because our assessments don't reflect it.

And I made the point earlier, they wouldn't lose the development right.

But our assessment would not reflect that development right in the back.

If he had just a six acre parcel instead of- You would do two acres of a home site and the other four acres would be at a residual amount.

Yeah, correct.

And the residual value per acre is 15% of the home site rate.

23,000 per acre.

Yeah, again, that's, you know, something that, you know, the single element of doing it only again thing is

Exactly.

Getting rid of the easement is different than combining them back together and then separating them again.

So community development, I assume, because they required it back in 2008, would require that access to be put in place if they were broken back down.

Well, this is a hypothetical call.

to combine them together now, back together.

What brought out losing the value, the ultimate value?

What's the process for me doing that?

I have no idea.

I don't do this kind of stuff.

You gotta go talk to the county and get it.

I'm here, come out of the county.

Most likely that's why it was subdivided.

Let's take advantage of it.

I move we affirm the assessor's assessment that

Thank you, Bob.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay.

The assessment is affirmed unanimously.

Thank you for coming.

All right.

All now, location number

or LPD, Hollymead, LLC.

I'm not, I'm Amy Brinker.

So we had a person leave our company.

And so this was put on my desk about two weeks ago.

So I apologize that there wasn't any documentation sent ahead of time.

You just couldn't get it.

I apologize.

It's okay with you to go ahead and swear you in.

Sure.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony, both oral and documentary, which you're about to give, will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So it looks like we have filed an appeal, which it looks like that we have filed an appeal, because the management company believes that the accept grade for this hotel is incorrect.

So the board assessed the Sabre Suites up at the airport.

Stayed there last night.

Lovely hotel.

But it was assessed as a grade one and we believe it should be a four, maybe a three, maybe a three and a half, somewhere in between there.

I'm just going to walk through the reasons we think that and then

I guess you guys can have your discussion and your decision.

So on the assessment model that I was given a couple of weeks ago, it looks like a grade one determination is based on a newer hotel or a recent major renovation in an upper, excuse me, middle to upper range for the class.

So this hotel was actually built in 2019, which if that was a house, that would certainly be a new house.

My house was built last century, way early, so I wish my house was built in 2019.

But with hotels, typically the brands, so Marriott, Hilton, IHG, this happens to be an IHG hotel, and they have all the brands underneath them.

actually require a major renovation after five to six years.

So we are coming up on that requirement and IHG and the ownership is working on getting the, it's called a PIP, a property improvement plan together to do that.

Hotels just get a lot of wear and tear, a lot more than an actual house would have.

And so the newer hotel, the newer property is a little bit different for hotels.

So we would argue that it's actually not a newer hotel,

It is old.

It needs a renovation.

And then moving on to the upper middle range for its class.

So as I mentioned, this is an IHG branded hotel, Intercontinental Hotel Group.

And those are typically not as desirable as a Marriott or a Hilton.

There is one high-end brand within that portfolio.

But just generally, the Staybridge Suites brand is considered a low to middle range.

even within the extended, so State Bridge, in case you guys don't know, is an extended stay.

The rooms have little kitchenettes and usually a little seating area, but it is like the low to mid range for that type of a hotel.

So that is why we think it should go from grade one down to three or four.

We think this is a combination of higher age and the lower range for the class.

represents the four that even though it is a higher eight, it's probably lower to middle range, not necessarily low, not necessarily middle, because it's a middle range in our opinion, and it's in need of a renovation.

So somewhere between a three and a four, I think is where we would land on that.

And then moving down to like the revenues and the numbers.

So geographically, this is on the north side of town, which presents,

Even though it's definitely a performing asset, it's certainly not as desirable as the hotels and other extended stay establishments within like downtown or near the university.

So our occupancy by the airport sort of depends on compression occupancy.

And that is when Charlottesville fills up due to a football game or a basketball game.

And then that pushes occupants up to the north side.

So our occupancy is a little bit lower than it would be typically if we were inside of what's closer to downtown.

On our numbers here, so the most important, and forgive me, I don't know how familiar the board is with hotel businesses, but the big numbers you look at are occupancy, ADR, which is average daily rate, and REVPAR, which is revenue per available room.

So in your model,

You have the average ADR as for, excuse me, for all reporting properties as $172.42.

And our average ADR is only $144.35.

That means that we are not able to actually fetch a higher nightly rate or daily rate for our hotel because of our locations on the north side.

It's about 16% less.

than your average.

And then moving on to Revpar, which again is revenue per available room.

That on your model, the average is $113.64 and our projected Revpar is $104.77.

So that's again about, I don't do public math, so that's about 10% less than what your model said.

And then lastly, I have the numbers.

I'm not able to give them to you because they're proprietary that we get from COSAR.

But it's pretty well known in the markets, just in the investment markets, that the luxury hotel brands are increasing.

in their success in all ways.

Occupancy, ADR, Revpar, those numbers are going up right now in this economy.

The middle to lower range, more economical traveler, they're traveling less, they have less money to spend on vacation, so Revpar and occupancy and ADR is going down, even as the luxury resorts are going up, because the people who can go on vacation are going on more, the people who can't are saving money for groceries.

So those are all the reasons that we have.

Like I said, it's a lovely hotel.

I stayed there last night, but it just doesn't have the desirability that the hotels have down here further south from the airport.

So like I said, we would like to be reassessed so the half rate would move from the eight and a half percent half rate of a limited service grade one.

Okay, thank you.

We're from the Assessor's Office now.

Page four is where we find the hotel model.

And if anybody doesn't have their book, please write it for us.

So if you look at page four, you can see the grades and the different classes of property or different types of property that we've talked about before in different sessions with this property being limited service, I believe.

For the 2025 assessment, we're using the 2023 operating statement and that is because

That is a full year that we have available to us in 2024 when we start to create the assessments for 2025.

So we're always behind.

So we looked at the 2023 operating statement for this year.

The 2022 and the 2021 operating statements have not been provided to us in the past.

So prior year's assessments

had been based on our estimates because nothing had been provided to us.

The appellant has provided the 2022 and 2021 operating statements based on the request for this appeal.

I did inspect the property on March 26th.

It's in excellent condition.

It was built in 2019.

And yes, I do agree that PIPs are required by all branded facilities over a certain period of time.

Some are five, some are six, and some are seven.

But a new facility like this built in 2019 does not require a full renovation.

So I found the property to be in excellent condition overall.

We did use the Grade 1 property model because it's a newer or recent major renovation, middle to upper range for class.

The improvements are in excellent condition.

We used the Smith Travel Research Chain Scale to rank the brands and that's an upscale chain by Smith Travel Research.

The Grade 1 designation we believe is accurate and the cap rate assigned to the Grade 1 is 8.5%.

We believe that's accurate.

The income sheet we have is presented on the third page of our documentation.

We used the actual room sales, restaurant sales, other sales, and egg fund to get a total revenue of $3,996,654.

Actual expenses were used.

The only adjustment that was made was for a 3.5% management fee, which is based on our model on page four of our

Weisweig, five Albemarle County Commercial Assessment models.

And we use a four and a half percent replacement reserve that was increased from last year when it was 4% based on market data that indicated that replacement reserve was increasing.

The value indication that included the FF&E was $12,259,100.

And we had

So one of the reasons why I want to point out page four in our model is that we're not comparing this property to a Hilton's or a Marriott's.

Those are full service type properties.

As a limited service, we are using a higher capital.

We believe that the, that grade one would be a pressure in this newer, what we refer to as newer property, even though, you know, yes, it goes through a improvement plan.

The flag will want their properties to stay up to a certain standard in order for them to keep the flag

which this property does not, we believe that it is a grade one property.

So the combination of grade one and limited service cap rate, we determine a cap rate based on the combination of those two things.

The applicant also mentioned the 144.35 ADR, we're using their actual income.

So we're reflecting the income that this property would get where it is and what actually gets where it is and not using any kind of analysis

So I think we reflect the cap rate appropriately, the grade, the type of property and which is service level and the income of the property because we use the actual income.

I just wanted to say that the overall lodging market that I gave the data on the model on page four

of Occupancy of 65.9% and an ADR of 173.42 with a red par of 113.64.

That includes all of the properties that report in this market from economy scale to full service resort.

8.5%.

Do you have any questions?

Then you have

Sure, no worries.

So I just wanted to clarify, you had mentioned you used our actual revenue and that my 144.35 ADR was not correct.

Okay, you're right.

35 is correct.

Okay, thank you.

So

I'm just going to walk through a couple of points made by the Assessor's Office here.

Respectfully, the Assessor's Office doesn't get to determine our contractual relationship with the brand.

If they're going to require a pit between five and six years, that's something we have to do.

The hotel industry is probably better at assessing when a hotel needs a renovation.

It might look nice.

We take really good care of it, but it is outdated in the grand scheme of the hotel standard.

So if you're looking at, hey, this looks like a great lobby, things aren't ripped up, we're trying to make that presentable for our guests.

But in the hotel industry, that standard is different and it's outdated and needs to be renovated.

And we're going to have to do a renovation.

So that's just not even a question.

The three and a half percent management fee is in the market.

I will tell you that I

and the general counsel for the management company of this hotel.

We also take a shared services fee of 1%.

And I think there is also another asset management fee of 1%, but I cannot remember that in this particular engagement.

So I think that fee is probably closer to 4.5% that the ownership of this hotel is paying.

Sorry, I already mentioned the ADR.

And then everything in the market, I get that it does everything from the smallest

Days Inn with outside hallways is in here and everything up to the nicest hotel in Charlottesville is in here.

But I did print out this map just to kind of give myself a visual.

And most of the hotels here, this is just from Google Maps.

It's not anything fancy.

See all these hotels here?

We're way up here.

So I get that it's a market.

It's probably in the same market where the map is drawn.

But it doesn't change the fact that we only get compression occupancy.

and our ADR is lower than the average.

So that's just what we asked.

I agree with this, that's just not, it's a great hotel.

So if you'd like to stay there, you're welcome.

But it is, we don't think that grade one is appropriate.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sure.

So if you look at the models, so grade one is defined as newer or recent major in renovation and upper to middle range for the class.

So I assume the class of hotels that are in this, like the extended stay type class of hotels,

Number three is up to 15 years old or recently renovated, which again, in this instance, a recent renovation is not within the last five or six years, and then low to middle range for the class.

I believe, and I apologize, I think this one is considered upper mid-scale or mid-scale on the range for the COSAR reports.

and then grade four is a combination of higher age and lowest range for class.

I think we originally asked for that in our application.

I think looking at the fact that we're closer to a three than a four, but I don't think that we're a one.

as a one.

So we are limited service grade one, which gives us eight and a half percent cap rates.

A grade three would give us a nine and a half percent cap rate and a four would give us a 10.

Again, I don't think we should have applied for a four.

What's the difference in the price between a one cap of eight and a half and what you think it should be?

I don't even have a copy of that, I apologize.

No, we get some reviews from guests that say it's a little bit old.

But even though it's old, we've maintained it pretty well.

I'll just make a comment.

We provide a replacement reserve, which is never included in the operator statements, to take into consideration that capital improvements have to be done each and every year.

Yeah, the actual income basically would be the adjustment for location.

So if something in downtown was getting this 170 ADR and they're getting 144, that's your difference, the location, and any other factor included in there.

But I mean, again, there's

There's a positive factor in the hotel business by being close to the airport.

Not that it's necessarily as good as being in downtown, but there are positives and negatives to all of it.

Oh, gosh.

And exploring that, as you said, the grade one, two, three, four.

When I read this,

and then it's middle to upper range for class.

Within its limited service.

Within limited service, yeah.

And it could be two if it was newer or recent renovation.

That's six years.

And then the low to middle ranges, again, the class.

in this definition.

I'm curious about the second option for grade two where it says, or up to 15 years old or recently renovated, middle to upper range for class.

Didn't this hotel fall into that category?

Yeah, unfortunately the wording of these categories is not, what we're actually shooting for here is 15 years, the 15 year old range.

This property is six years old and it's not approaching 15 years.

So let's say it's not renovated.

As you approach 15 years.

As you approach 15, so it would be another six, eight years?

Correct.

Unless they were able to show us that there is

You know, we need to do $4 million worth of work on this to keep our flag.

That would be an indication that it's not meeting standards, but we haven't gotten any information that shows something like that.

But I thought that the capital reserves was supposed to solve it.

It didn't, it didn't, well, everything there.

It's their choice because they get

They have occupancy driven by their reservation system.

So their brand choice and their PIP is all different for each and every brand.

Some require every five years, some require every seven, some require 14 major.

And the pool renovations are usually anywhere between two and five million, depending on the requirements.

I don't have the numbers in my head right now.

I apologize.

It wouldn't make sense to me to say close to 15 years, but it's category two based on the wording.

And for three,

Glass for category three, and then over 15 for the second part of category three.

To me, it's just a question of whether we can argue that this ought to fit into category one or two.

I don't think there's really such an argument that it should be a three.

I agree.

I don't know why.

I don't know that it's classified by like the brands, but I get your question.

You don't provide near what a Hilton does.

Right.

So under the Hilton flag, there's several different kinds of hotels, right?

So

Well, let me use Marriott because I'm just more familiar with that.

So if you have a Ritz under a Marriott or a regular Marriott, as opposed to an Aloft or a Moxie, some hotels have a full restaurant that's considered full service.

Some hotels just maybe have a free breakfast.

Our extended stay hotel just has a free breakfast.

We don't have a restaurant or bars or things like that.

It's not a full-service hotel.

the grade.

I would agree with that.

There's a limited service down lower on your paper.

Yeah.

Right.

I agree with that, yeah.

If I could provide for comparison.

There are two hotels in the county that rate as a tooth.

One was built in 2013, and one was built in 1962, but had been running there.

This is why it's unfortunate the wording that we use in the grades up to 15 years, because it's actually

I can't speak to why the Assessor assessed other hotels a certain way.

I can only assess our hotels.

We can only go by the wording.

We're not in the Assessor's office.

Yeah.

I mean, it appears to me you have followed your model appropriately.

However, there

up to 15.

I think that needs to be redefined.

And when the word middle applies to two levels, that's squishiness.

And you've got to clarify

in the future.

I have placed some not renovated since 2013.

And where did the 15-year determination, like why is that a great point?

We're hearing that these things, yeah, need to be updated every five to seven.

True.

So the five to seven is really to maintain and it's not actually changing at that time.

So the point of

doing those improvements is for it not to actually get into a bad condition so that it maintains the good condition over time.

to the higher level.

I understand.

I guess to me it would make more sense to create some type of a qualitative measure of functional obsolescence there because I imagine there's some brands that people still go to the homestead even though it looks 100 years old.

And some of the brands may age at different rates depending on how things change.

But I understand how it's set up.

sort of went by default by the Assessor's Office under the statute.

If it were two years further, maybe even one year further out, I think I might feel differently on it.

It's very close.

I think if it broke 50% of 15 years, I would be more inclined.

Is there a motion?

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor?

All post.

Thank you, I appreciate you hearing me.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, we'll hear now application number 41.

And I believe Mr.

Prince has a PowerPoint.

And I'm going to present.

I'm going to put it up on the screen for you.

While you do that, can we take a two-minute break?

Sure.

Just allow people to pop in and out.

Yes, we can.

You might just tell me when to change slides.

All right.

I'd like to do this on Zoom and to project in the

to do it all through my computer.

It all has to be connected.

Okay, I'm going to swear you in.

Please raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony both oral and documentary, which you're about to give, will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

I do, yes.

Madam, I stand up.

Not at all?

First, I'd like to thank you all for giving me this time.

But I'll also say,

I'm not against paying taxes.

Love our roads or love our good schools.

Just I don't think I should be paying as much as I can.

So just as a brief description, which you probably all read, this property is located in Old Trail.

It's on about a third of an acre.

GIS described it as about 4,800 square feet, three bedrooms, three and a half baths.

I would describe it a lot more comprehensively by saying it's bordered by an easement, which is a drainage ditch, which changes what we can and cannot plant on the edge or place on the edge of the property.

It's adjacent to public trails that are used by hundreds of people each week.

There's an entrance at the end of our road.

It's construction vehicles, emergency vehicles, the parking lot.

The neighbor next to me is the Brooklyn lot.

Some of the buildings where you can get to dump the construction waste that stopped, but they haven't even cleaned it up.

The streets have been dug up multiple times since they haven't finished it.

Apparently the last time was a few weeks ago.

When they do these things, they park a lot of the equivalent boulevards are damaged or unfinished.

In our whole neighborhood, housing is quite dense compared to other parts of the whole trail.

And it's just a different kettle of fish.

Views are similar to other parts of Old Trail.

They're lonely views, I would agree with that.

We don't have the maturity of trees or unfinished houses.

And as a ballpark, I think a fair assessment, if you had my house on Woodburn, I'd be somewhere in the middle of the highest and the lowest.

Currently, I think I'm the fourth highest in the entire Old Trail belt.

And there's only three higher than me.

So this is Bishopgate Lane and my property.

So you can see the houses have very small lots.

These are sometimes a quarter of an acre, not even a third of an acre.

We have rural houses, lovely neighbors, but the housing is very different from what I'm going to show you.

And this is the lot next to me.

Well, this is from Zillow, a view from one of the houses in Woodburn.

They also have nice views.

This is a lovely house.

All the lots in Woodburn are roughly about double the size to minimum half an acre, but pretty much larger, more mature trees, same lovely views.

Next slide, please.

And the entire community is a stunningly gorgeous community.

No single, no local family dwellings, no apartments.

It's a very private road.

Next slide please.

So this is our house.

Lots described in some of the literature I got has been gently sloping from the front of the house down.

Actually it's

Last day, we closed the deal to build this house in 2020.

I closed for that amount.

We had improvements and so on.

There was an assessment which I appealed, and that first appeal was denied.

And then after I notified the county that I wanted to go through this process, all of a sudden, it was reduced.

I don't know why that occurred.

This is one house I use as a constable in Woodburn.

This last sale was after we had purchased our house.

Not after it was constructed, but very soon.

We closed in January, I think, of 2023.

A larger lot, a much larger house, and it's a system that's actually less than what it's sold for.

It's not fictional, I understand the policies.

leads to the different things.

And the house isn't as large as it looks.

And I think that we shouldn't be the third largest assessment on woodprings.

Next slide, please.

These are some of the other houses.

I got a quick look.

The point is this just gives you a close-up of what this neighborhood is like.

I don't think that it's fair to assess our house in this ballpark.

Our neighborhood doesn't have a maturity.

Our house doesn't have the size of these properties.

Next slide, please.

This is one that just went on the market and I became aware of last week.

Its last sale was in 2024 for just over a million, posting a little higher now.

It's larger than our house at 5,200 square feet.

Let's Like Ours, and Everybody's Like Ours.

It's mixed.

So there are townhouses and so on, as well as the single families, and it's assessed for substantially less knowledge.

Next slide, please.

This is just a summary of what you've all

Woodburn, but you can see that many of the houses are as large or larger than ours and yet some of the assessments are substantially less than ours.

I'm just trying to get into this one.

Next slide please.

Why did we pay more?

And Andy probably read this, but my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

and we signed an offer with the builder and a higher price would do two things.

One was the nature of accommodations we needed for her condition and how the funds can not lead to wider access and hallways, porches and so on and doors, upgraded fixtures, a custom kitchen to try and match what we had in our previous house.

We finished part of the basement to be a caregiver suite.

And that's actually was defined, the developer had to sign an agreement with everything he used to come back to space only for accommodating a caregiver.

And all of these things added to the cost, which likely would be appealing to the next buyer.

They wouldn't want to pay a premium.

And then we built our house during COVID.

So if a builder was building a track house during COVID, they build a house, say for a million dollars, they decide what their profit margin is going to be, and that's what they sell it for.

With a custom house, they have to guarantee and lock in the price at the beginning.

Unknown to them is how prices are going to change through the construction process.

So you end up paying premiums so they don't take it on the chin.

And I don't think we'd ever recover that COVID premium in the current market.

Next slide, please.

So the property record card also had a few things that got me thinking and I wasn't sure what was going on.

And first of all, there are a lot of lots available, premium large lots that are now being advertised for sale.

So the process seems to be a little loose.

On my property record card, they describe the basement as greater than 2,000 square feet, and I'm not sure what they're talking about in that measurement.

About a third of those basements crawl space, a third is storage, and part of it is that living area, and they describe the living area as 3,500 square feet on the main floor.

No, Hawaii is described as over 4,000 square feet.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So what I'm requesting again is roughly to be in the average of Woodburn, the numbers are a bit arbitrary, but the point is I don't think that should be the fourth most expensive house in the entire development, most expensive on much street, given that our neighborhood is, many of the neighborhoods speak like Woodburn is.

And the only reason why we ended up building was because none of the property career available

Are you ready for us?

So I do want to comment on a couple things.

First of all, we are not assessing property at the sales price.

We're below the sales price.

So if there is anything that was really not reflective and

in the market value based on the purchase, we were already below that sale price.

And then to something that- I want to say something about that.

Let's let him finish and then you'll have opportunity for answer.

Okay.

You know, when we do a review, I'm hoping that we catch everything.

So it doesn't matter if it's just our internal review, which we really want to resolve everything in our internal review.

We don't want to go to the VOE and then find something we missed.

So unfortunately, in this case, we did miss something.

So there was a descriptive

There in the property that we fixed that we missed when we did the initial review.

So I also I mean, I find that a little squishy that we didn't catch it in the first one, you know, but we are not perfect.

So but there's no other reason for that.

It just had to do with once we looked at our looked at it.

And prior to this hearing or, you know, as we're preparing for this hearing, we found something that we should have found first off.

So of course based on that we changed it.

So it was basically a valuation of how the basement was valued.

And just an explanation of greater than 2,000.

That number, is that based on finished square feet?

Because it's not 2000 square feet.

And then I'm not sure that we, everything we value

on houses, it's either above grade and it's included in living area or it's area or it's basement, whether it's basement finished or unfinished.

We don't lump it together with the above grade finished area because it's not as valuable even when it's finished.

Even when it's finished at the same quality as the above grade, we found that it's not as valuable.

So we always separate those two.

So I'm going to look at why

This might have been shown in GIS differently than I expected it would be.

Also, this was a premium lot.

The lot itself sold for more than $400,000 when I think the average for the neighborhood was in the $200,000.

Bell range.

So this is from the developer to the builder, exactly.

So this was a premium, and of course that is going to be reflective of what they're going to charge when they build a house on it, but it's because it is a premium line with the views and location.

It's got the golf course down below.

It's got the pond behind it.

that yes, all trail, you know, a lot of properties have mouthpiece, but this is superior choice to build on this line includes that.

So we believe that, you know, the value that we are

that we're defending here is appropriate.

It's below the sales price.

So, you know, it's not that we're always above the sale price.

So we're going to be below the sales price on half of the properties, and we're going to be above the sale price on half of the properties.

Yeah, I just want to say a couple of things.

When Jeff came out, he did say it reflected the sales price.

And so that's why I was using the sales price so much.

He said it didn't reflect Zillow.

And in this report, there are direct quotations from the Zillow document, which I didn't compose.

Those are composed by the builder.

So to say we have custom cabinets is not true.

in our kitchen.

They measure the cabinet's space and they go to a fabricator and the computers crank out cabinets and they stick them in.

That's how it was done.

The tops aren't quartz as they're described on Zillow, they're granite.

I think the issue for me was comparing the neighborhoods and values of Woodburn versus other streets like Claremount and ours.

We just aren't going to command ever the same price on our streets as they can on Woodburn.

I have a question for Mr. Earnke.

That was from one of the houses in Woodford.

But you didn't have a picture from your home.

On the view.

Well, I'm not mad because the idea is if it was a premium block, I noticed the discrepancies.

They're valued

So that's what I'm trying to- So the premium, I think, was again, a function of COVID that people wanted a house.

They were basically, it was a seller's market to put one up.

And I'm not sure, it might be a seller's market for all of us selling in five years, who knows?

But right now, I don't think it is.

Or last year, I don't think it was.

And the street is an unfinished street.

I'm not the only house on this.

There's one beside me that's going to be built.

There's one on the corner on the same side that partially overlaps on the street.

There's one across from me that takes the whole length of the street and I can see three backyards.

Plus, it has a walkway and a roadway that goes up to the end that has a gate.

It's used as a construction parking zone.

All the time I've had to phone the police because they blocked my driveway with parked vehicles or holes.

I went to the fire department because when they park their vehicles overnight there isn't enough room for the fire engine to get balanced.

Give me a second.

Is there any adjustment applied for the sort of unique features that Mr. Arts identified with the wide hallways and bathrooms?

Was there any consideration to doing that?

Those are not houses that include those types of improvements.

Some of those things

Nice Places Dude, specialty doors and hallways, hallways with the lease user space and the house.

Those were enlarged to allow a walker or a wheelchair.

I think

So the bathroom I affectionately refer to sleeps four, but it's 25 feet by 20.

It's a big one.

You had to go back in and

No, no, no.

They built it.

They built it.

We built it.

So we asked the designer.

I went in there knowing that my wife was going to have a limited time there before she was off to memory care and wanted to make that as long as possible.

I guess it's ADA compliant for sure.

I don't think it is because of the stairwell.

And we have, I think, five doors to the outside, which don't have interior locks.

What would be a standard hallway with?

We'll see.

That's a substantial amount of square footage that almost no one is going to want.

The most compelling of the arguments here for me would be that that has some unique features that should be subject to some type of functional obsolescence adjustment.

The easement was also a hassle because it was undeclared before the plans were approved.

The easement is for a drainage culvert.

I have a pump at the back, I guess, for the left of your house.

To the left of your house.

And the standing at the front is to the left.

That's the left rear.

Left rear is where the main drain is, but the easement goes, I think, eight feet all the way down the curb.

Okay.

Bob Celeste.

That would be my feeling on it.

I think the Assessor's Office has carried its burden to feel it was assessed with fair market value or at the same value as surrounding properties that are similar.

I think their arguments are well taken about the nature of the neighborhood and ensuring that we've got comparable clearance.

But there's no adjustment at all for essentially partial ADA compliance.

issues or adjustments that that would seem unusual to me.

And I'm inclined to apply an adjustment to that.

An adjustment consistent with the scope of the changes, right?

There's a lot of situations where someone might want that though, including like, you know, teenager area or mother-in-law suite.

calling up on that.

There's a difference in what the assessor is saying and what the applicant is saying of about $300,000.

About $100,000 in land value, $200,000 in the improvement.

Let me address the land value for a moment.

When I look at your comparables on Woodburn, they're larger lots.

versus a third of an acre approximately with same value.

But when I look at the assessor's comparables on Bishopgate, your same street, the lot sizes are actually smaller than yours, but assessed at the same value.

How do we explain that?

I'm only here to represent myself.

Well, then I'll ask the assessor.

Do you see what I'm saying?

In Woodburn, you're talking half acre lots, the applicant's about a third of an acre, but then on his same street, there are lots of about two tenths of an acre, but they're all the same value on land only.

Right, so first of all, the Woodburn is a different neighborhood.

It's Upper Ballard.

What we call Old Trails single family, which is this neighborhood.

But it's part of Old Trail.

They're both part of Old Trail.

They're both in Albemarle County, but they are different neighborhoods.

So they have different sales that are used to determine their values.

So, and to answer your question about the

the comparables on Bishop Gate.

The comparable lots on Bishop Gate.

Basically, there are four properties along the left.

Sorry, more than four.

There's like six properties here that all have a premium.

Golf Course, and if you can see it up on the screen there, this is the premium that we use here for all of these problems.

And then these on the outside have a smaller premium for having the open space behind them.

So the four or six that you've got the largest premium on, they back up to a lake and golf course.

A common area that looks like it's a park of some sort in front of it.

It's a walkway.

Public walkway.

there is the half circle of art right here the art inside the inside that's the part yeah where's woodburn in relation to this it is upper balance up here right yeah that's it yeah

I mean, I agree the land is, they're the premium that those lots deserve.

Land, Michael said, thank you for hinting that.

But it's an adjustment for the functionality of the actual design large.

I would call it an inefficient use of the space for typical residential.

Yeah, so I mean is that

which I'm not opposed to.

So I think, to me, it's a small adjustment.

I think I would start at 5%.

But they've proven it.

Yeah, they've proven it.

I'm not sure if you can see this.

But this is the plans.

It can start on screen.

That was the original plan before the easement was

Hilder knew about it, was trying to ignore it, and I think pushed back on the county.

The county didn't yield, so we had to change the design of the house, and the house was smaller in that plan, so that plan is not what the house is.

By May.

The easement goes this way.

But you have mentioned the hallway.

Is that a six-foot hallway on the drawing?

Is this the hallway you're referring to?

The main accommodations were

Wheelchair.

So this entire area is bathroom and closet,

Walker, whatever she needed.

And that was the bathroom with the accommodations over by the shower, large commode area.

Yeah, I just end up feeling like we can't sign that zero.

Seems inappropriate to ignore it completely and say that it matches market.

To lower the assessment on the improvement by 5% would be about $65,000 approximately.

I mean, I'm not opposed to 5%.

I think you can make the argument the bathroom is actually, you should see a side of my wife's bathroom.

But I mean, I'm okay with that.

The one, is it on the 1.348?

It would be on the improvements only and it would actually, I put it in already, you'd have exactly $1,05,141.50.

$1,005,800?

That still would be the highest and old trail and quite a bit higher than that one I showed you on the Fire Mountain.

The views are very comparable.

Nice area.

How old is that house on Fire Mountain?

I don't know.

I'm guessing eight years of the age.

So how is this meaningless?

The adage in real estate is location, location, location.

I can show you a hundred year old homes in this country that are tens of millions smaller than mine.

Well, our last meeting we had, was it at 15% for something was in that range, 10 years production.

Okay.

So it was like,

I don't think it's like the used car.

No, it's not.

It's based on the condition, not the age.

I mean, you could have an old house that's been completely newly renovated.

So it's not, it's how people take care of it.

I believe that we lower this up to 1,514,100, which is a 5% reduction on the improvement value.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

Aye.

Opposed unanimously?

Who seconded?

Who seconded?

Bob.

Mr. Mayor.

All right, we will reconvene, meeting of the Board of Equalization.

Our next applicant is Application 7, Richard and Monica Chila, Property ID 32784.

Will both of you be speaking today or just one?

Okay, I'm ready to square you in as well.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony of the oral documentary which you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

We have 10 minutes to present your case.

I'm Rich Chella, my wife, Monica.

Thank you very much for speaking on the hot period of the PS5.

So we received the assessment.

Our basic contention is that the assessment does not reflect total bear market value.

We think it's a value too high in this area.

So we provided comparables for five resident citizens sold in the year 2024 in Highland Ridge, which is the neighborhood that was built.

You looked at the, when I looked at the realtor's records on the average selling price per total finished square foot, it was about $257 a square foot, a minimum of 231 and a maximum of about 207 eighths.

While our assessment was closer to $320 per total square foot.

So considerably above what goes in the neighborhood.

When we received the packet from the Board of Assessors supporting the higher assessment, the Assessor's Office used our costs.

However, their packet compares the value of the improvement based only on the finished square foot above grade.

And they show that, for example, that our home was based at $250 a square foot, only counting the square foot above grade,

whereas the range for the comparable homes is like 234 to 232.

All five homes in the comparables, all of the land is valued the same.

So what we're really talking about is the difference in the improvements.

All the land is equal at 275 miles per hour.

But by looking only at the total,

Square footage and assessment for the square foot above grade.

This analysis assumed that the finish space is below grade.

which is essentially contributed zero to the actual sales prices of these homes that were used in the comps.

But these homes, these finished basements, these are not just average finished basements.

These are entertainment spaces.

These contain wine and february.

These contain block out patios because the Highland Ridge area has great away from the home.

So many of the basements open up to open up to patios outside.

So for this reason, we did not be able to reflect a fair market value.

So for comparison and the attached to spreadsheet, which I brought in today, I made the assumption that a typical home buyer might value these finishing spaces.

Yeah, they're not going to be valued the same as the square foot of upgrade, but they're not zero either.

I made the assumption, what if they were valued at half of what you would value square footage above them?

If I do that calculation, you would get that the average square foot per bin lot plus half the value of the finished basement would be 193 square foot.

And ours is 250 square foot assessment.

So if we apply the average

Our improvements are at $675,586 for adding to the land value.

That's a value of $150,586, which is considerably lower than the assessed value for the assessment.

The logic behind my argument is if we had two identical homes in my neighborhood right next to each other, same square footage above grade, but one had an entertainment room, a bedroom, a bathroom, a walkout patio, there's no way those homes would be valued the same.

The homes that had that vintage area would be valued more than the home that did not have that.

Just tell you what to say.

I think this may have been captured already in our earlier submittal, but we do have a lot of build through grade finishes.

The primary bathroom has the tiny white squares, you know, not subway tile, not the big fuel tile, but the little ones.

That's the primary bath.

that's why, you know, mine will be with the technical Germans for oil.

So I just, I've been in these other houses.

They're not builder grade, I assure you.

And I'm saying that on your own.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

So first I wanna,

Just wanted to talk about the comparables that we provide in our analysis applicants is not just this but in all cases will provide comparables typically it's a list so we try to just provide it in a so you can see all the details about those properties and then you can kind of make comparisons instead of just saying okay these are sales that happen at their sales prices so

It just allows you to say, this is what it's all for, but these are the differences.

And it's inferior and it's inferior.

And that's typically always the case.

There's something inferior about different properties.

And that's the same thing when it comes to, in these cases, all of the comparables had basements, finished basements.

And yes, the finished basements are typically nice.

And as we discussed earlier,

Just not as valuable as the upgrade, even though it is nice.

So this allows you to kind of see that, yes, this should be adjusted down for that fact that those sales had had a basement and that is finished.

And not that there is no value for that in those houses, but that, you know, you just have to compare them that way.

But there are also other differences.

The first one is a one-story.

Now I'm talking about comparable one of the owner-provided comps.

It's a one-story, so it actually would be adjusted down per square foot when compared to the subject property.

A two-story would be adjusted up, so comparable number two is a two-story.

And Mr. Mitchell, I know you've said before, you don't know what a 1.25 to 1.25 is.

So basically in our model, anything that falls between that ratio, we consider a one and a half or a sine wave.