Board of Equalization Meeting   5/29/2026

Everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes and ascertain that they accurately reflect the proceedings from two days ago.

Thank you.

Are you Mr. Gulotta?

I am.

All right, are you gonna be giving testimony today?

Yeah.

Questions don't generally help us understand the basis for the argument until we just ask you to focus on persuasion today.

Again, I think that's based on, you know, the grade should be changed to A, but even if you don't believe that, just getting the base rate down to what my neighbors were paying on, you know, the similar rate plus one really drives them down to, you know, $1.8, $1.9 million valuation.

On your application, you requested evaluations 1.57 and 1.67 million dollars.

When I got that, those two A plus ones, it's nothing else, you gotta look at the two A plus ones home in my neighborhood and say, how can that be 30% higher?

I just want to make sure I understand the change.

My numbers do change from when I put the application in because I've gotten more information, right, as I've dug deeper into this.

I know, but they've changed to be closer to what the assessor.

I'm really just looking at how this is appraised.

Again, I'm not trying to belabor the point, but are you asking us to assess the land plus the improvements at 1.8 to $1.9 million without regard for the alternative land value?

Yes, the 2.171, I believe, should be 1.8 to 1.9.

Okay, thank you so much.

Yeah, that's all.

Okay, we'll hear from the Assessor's Office, please.

You're the one having a citizen.

Not shabby.

Were you provided a copy of... Could you speak to those items specifically where the homeowner is saying none of these things, my home does not qualify by any of these groups, or any of those stand out to you as certainly being present or if you agree they were not present?

The kitchen is not standard in this instance.

It's not custom.

Sorry, my apologies.

Based on what I saw and what I observed.

In our grade guide.

Will you take another look at it?

I don't think it was really obvious.

I feel like I need a little bit more to sort of understand why we're going up to an A plus one here for this particular.

We do not.

And this is a call where it's not obvious that I feel like we need to consider putting it on the same basis as the other houses in the neighborhood.

If you get away with it, you're going to just face it on the kitchen cabinets.

That's a difficulty because it's a collection of things, one thing or the other.

We ran into this before, wasn't there a list of features and it didn't have to have a majority of those features, you tend to have some of those features, correct?

I have copies of that, but it might want to.

That affects the base rate, but not the grade.

You have up to three minutes, Mr. Guato.

I'm sorry.

Well, how would the valuation change if we move from the 80 plus one to A?

I don't understand how this got overridden in the last three years.

That's a loser of an argument.

That's if it was an A grade.

So it's about 300,000?

Gosh.

specifically built by Peek are graded as A. I don't know.

They're right here.

He's been in here many times to you.

Is that your typical practice?

It's not always the typical practice to take pictures.

contend with essentially new evidence and just it feels like I think this is a good argument I just don't know if it's just a good time to make it but if we have the information that would be useful.

The urgent period is over.

We're in deliberation.

I understand it's a better experience for us all if everybody has everything laid out, but if you're in court and there's stuff missing, you don't sort of get the benefit that they've got all the time.

But generally speaking, I mean, they're in a box.

I mean,

I feel like if the grade was going to be an issue that should have been brought up earlier so they could review to see if they agreed that it's still an A plus one or not.

And the problem is the homeowner doesn't know that until they get it.

I don't think that's generally the way I feel on these.

Understanding that we need to move through these things and we can't hold them all over on this one, I would be in favor of that.

I'd like to see some, it'd be great if we saw some pictures.

I mean, this is the difficulty, right?

I don't know if you were.

He's got it right there.

Compare that and actually pick the boxes off and see how many are in A and how many are in A1.

And that's something that we can make a judgment on as on this board, right?

If you see the interior of all of them.

We can assume that the peak homes are all pretty similar, right?

So we can make that- I'd like to take that back.

But said two people.

That's the way the process plays out.

That's always an issue, right?

There's a certain amount of subjectivity there.

So if it's the same builder, and one of the hearings is the second one, we use that as a basis to say, okay, they all should be the same.

I think we also said that we weren't going to change the grades because we weren't there.

The only thing I'm comfortable doing is saying what's equal.

I understand that argument.

You've proposed something.

And I just give you that little bit of information to see if that helps at all.

I have no issue with that.

So again, the house that's in 35, 43, 55.

He's listed three in the neighborhood.

Oh, I'm sorry.

OK.

The other one's a brand new home being built.

I can tell you.

It might be the foundation.

Yeah, you're on the sort of.

It's not a contemporary looking house.

On the right.

And then the subject property had an A plus three grade on it.

No objection.

Can you just look at the last one?

So let him get the whole argument out.

Now all of that has been consolidated down into A, A plus and A minus.

So 43-55 was A what?

43-55 was an A plus 2 back in 2021.

And then 42-75?

45-46?

That was not built in 2021.

Okay.

That's very helpful.

I mean, it kind of shows that they're not all the same.

And what are your grades now, A plus?

They've been compressed once and stratified.

She took seven down to three.

could just go to one, wouldn't have to argue about the age.

The distance between A and B would be even greater, and we've had that conversation before.

It was a minus one or minus two, A minus one.

The A plus two became an A.

This was the value and this was how much was under contract for you.

But yeah.

There's no way that that house, brand new, bring up a picture of that house, please.

Do you have the address?

My wife and I were squeezing our pennies.

We need to wrap this up.

I think the next person is late, right?

Yes, that is true.

Yeah, I mean.

Technically, it's an A, but I haven't been confused.

Oh, this property is under construction.

As you can see, the house is under construction, so that grade will likely change to an A-plus when I'm done.

Thanks.

It fit in the A, so I put an A on it for now until I see the finished product and then I can go either way.

We have to pick up an interim value as of January 1st as the completion at that time.

If a homeowner has an issue with the grade, can he request you to go and re-evaluate?

But in this case, that process didn't play out because it didn't identify the create as an issue earlier.

You told me I had an A plus, I don't know what that means.

What's the difference?

So I can't take that court analogy and apply it here.

Well, and I will just add there, I'm obviously not an expert in the law, but if I have a contract between two parties, one who knows and one who does not, the default is to protect the one that does not, if there's ambiguity.

That's actually adverse to what we must do under the statute.

Preponderance is different.

We must presume correctness and it can be overcome by our preponderance.

That's my issue because we're tasking the assessor with assigning a grade so there has to be some reason that he was wrong and he hasn't had it.

I don't know how you get to this process but I would like to see the assessor allowed back in there take some pictures, evaluate it, come back to us and we can

you might decide today once you look at it a little closer i mean i've already said i'm so i'm not comfortable with that because i don't want to look at pictures i just want to say what are all the other houses in the neighborhood that are built by the same builder if those are all a's then this is an a that's all i'm comfortable doing i'm a so i i'm not because i'm going to say something i should have said when you have a spec builder

I feel comfortable doing that, even if you don't.

I just look at numbers and I can see when the numbers are equal.

Is that a possibility that you can go back and reevaluate?

And grade is definitely a big part of the value, so that's one of the big things to look at.

If not, we could hear it again.

I don't have 75 to 80% of the furniture.

That doesn't pass the smell test.

So let's give that a shot.

We have the list.

Right but I mean if there's a picture of a coffered ceiling then we could obviously see it has a coffered ceiling.

The trick on that though is like they did that process and they came down at A plus one so unless there's like a question of fact that they mistakenly recorded that there was a super deluxe fireplace and there's not I don't know that but but there's nothing in the record that shows that there's nothing that's I'm arguing um from your position right now yeah I think if he went back in

It's his professional judgment that I rely on and I would just like to see him reassess and use his professional judgment and give us literally a scorecard, item by item, is it A or A plus?

I didn't get the sense that there's any indeterminacy or the Assessor's Office backing away from

but when he just goes through and does a general assessment from five years ago it's you know it's hard and so you know I'm still in the same camp I just you know I don't see how this peak home is different than the other peak homes and I think everything else that we're talking about is adding a lot of complexity and it's asking for me to have skills that I simply do not have

But if it were to be changed, it's like it would be changing the way that it would support this.

then that is something we can consider but what we have is a situation where it's unclear and all the other homes are assessed at an A and so to me when I put those two things together I'm just saying well let's just be equal then because we're not sure if we're not sure of the difference we just make everyone equal

If he's okay with that.

Yes.

We don't even need to meet.

I think we have to complete the vote.

If we could confirm that these are the interior photos of the house, it's online.

I have to bring it up.

The internet follows you.

Let's put this to bed.

Okay.

I would just want to caution the marketing photo.

It's a home.

It's a substitute quality.

Hardy Flank is now like everything's a Xerox machine.

This is the house.

I got one of those miles.

We have one and it hasn't been very good.

Well, the propane's the problem.

That's custom cabinetry, isn't it?

If there's any chance we can back one.

There's less factor sealing there.

Pictures from one of the other homes in the neighborhood with the same clever ingenuity of your private.

It's a very nice home.

We just want it to be equal.

What's the white thing there?

It cost me $200 on Etsy.

21.

It's there, okay.

43, 45, that's an A.

Metal roof, by the way.

Yeah, same kind of kitchen.

Well, the fridge is not, but the range is.

Right, the fridge is not, but the range is.

accent wall, courtyard, sun porch, wet bar, square footage, cabinets are not as well done in the kitchen, they don't go to the ceiling,

and a fireplace.

They have a dog shower in their block.

Let me see that handrail.

I'm just saying there is no bathroom of that quality in the first house that we observed, I think.

I don't think we saw it either, right?

There's one.

Got Claudens.

and Walter Taft, Grant Taft.

Slicing the balloon on these two.

I would end up feeling like subject property was a

He's the same guys, mostly doing carbon

And those walnut cabinets are the same cabinets.

That's just the choice of style.

And going to the ceiling didn't cost me a penny more.

I think mine is an 8 plus 1 and I'm feeling really agree.

I don't want to get all my neighbors in trouble so please don't.

Is there a motion with respect to this application?

So I know we're not gonna, I'm gonna just propose that we drop it from an A plus one to an A.

Okay.

Aye.

Is there another motion?

I think so.

It's... 19598.

No, no, no.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

The next applicant here.

Fashion Square Assets, LLC, number 33.

I got one we can share.

I was going to, what's up?

I'll be okay with that.

Thank you.

Can you stand the excitement?

It's at 3 30.

Magistrate status conference in Boston.

Uh oh.

I might have to, I might have to scoot back to my office.

It matters whether you got a damn tie on or not.

You're a bit uppity like that.

You stay away from the state?

They got both, I guess.

Next one's by J.C. Perry.

Yeah.

It's a lot of rest to take, I mean, but he had a big empty building so maybe he just figured.

Because they have a home time.

Yeah.

An hour and 15 minutes later, I'm kind of inclined to forward the books we're already scheduled and then fit it in.

Are we going to have a gap?

It's 2.00 at Madison Square and the Leek Square self storage.

The second one was what?

Leek Square.

No, 2.00 to 2.30.

2.00 to 2.30.

We have it at the end of the day.

When we have a 4.30 to 5 o'clock opening for catch up, we left a half an hour so we could... You can wait.

He's going to have to fit it all in.

Our next applicant is coming in at 2.30.

So there's only been enough time to hear one.

Where is he coming from?

Perhaps Maryland, someplace Northern Virginia, I'm not really sure where they started out of.

Have you dealt with them?

At the end of the month.

Yeah, I'm through with that.

Wow.

Well, there's a seven-minute, or excuse me, 10-minute period for you to make a case, and then seven minutes for the Assessor's Office, and then a three-minute proposal period if you'd like to take that opportunity.

I respectfully ask the board to apply the correction today and lower my land assessment to $354,000.

South for South.

Just try not to parallax the bypass.

And we don't believe that the fact that it's adjacent to the Culthurst neighborhood, which is not a part of the legal subdivision of Culthurst, that that really applies to it being inequitably assessed this year.

So the property in question is, it's on the same side of Barrack Road as the call to our city.

It is, it is adjacent to the neighborhood.

Because if you're on one side in the neighborhood, if you're on the other side, those would feel, so why do we have

Probably have restrictive covenants that are common to the neighborhood at large, right?

It's probably back in the 50s.

Can't get two acre lots in the county anymore.

What about the two lots right next door there, 09 and 10?

So those are all assessed, everything in the pink or whatever color this is, will all be based on the same base rates for land, same multipliers for improvements.

going to absorb Coldhurst into Foxfield, which means completely surrounded by it, so I get that.

which one did you use?

Oh, are these the first two?

They're not necessarily in Colehurst.

They are.

Could it be up to you?

Okay.

Yes, those are in Colehurst.

It's those two at front.

So that improved as well.

So the crowd, we have the rebuttal and then we'll have our discussion.

Yes, if Mr. Patel would like to make a rebuttal.

No, 39.

That person addressed to me.

I don't know.

He did.

So if we take it as given that it's part of the Foxfield area, then I don't see what the argument is to change the assessment.

And I don't think that there's more compelling evidence to put it at 354 than what the Assessor's Office assessed it at initially.

I understand that's overall.

I didn't.

Just as a data point, I'm not making an argument.

Well, also multiply the difference in the acreage from the comps, kind of in line.

You're going to weighted average that in?

And see how that fits with the rest of the sales.

It ought to be part of Foxfield.

Correct.

What is so compelling that Colters has to go to Foxfield?

And that's the concern.

Or as things get developed, sales happen, all kinds of stuff.

I'm right there with you.

And you've got to.

You know, it's unfortunate but we're all facing that.

Moved to affirm the assessor's figures.

Thank you very much for your presentations, Mr. Patel.

Thank you, and thank you, Assessors.

I need more of me.

Thank you.

It is, but if you're the people that are here.

Just bought in and paid that price.

I'm not going to do anything.

But we can get started if you want.

Right.

It's my understanding that we have the access to artificial intelligence, which is going to illustrate this.

It's not a problem, but it happens here.

And I would argue that the crisis is UVA would have to disappear, which isn't going to happen, no.

Do you want to pause it?

It gets me in trouble.

Which one are we doing next?

Next is Mr. Daniel.

No, boss, or no.

I'm just going to say what I want to say.

I couldn't get a yes or no.

He goes, this is a yes or no question.

A response by the Assessor's Office and then you can take up to three minutes for rebuttal if you like.

I don't have them in his.

Or are they bound?

I've got an X.

I thought I put it in everybody's.

Oh, there's one right here.

That's what I offered you.

It's missing the rest of the writer.

Is that not it?

It's this extra page that's up there.

Oh, she just preferred that.

Sorry about that computer.

My discussion or do you want to profit?

Probably works best for you to make your case and then we'll swap to the other side and then back to you.

Is that 90 seconds?

All right, the assessor's office.

Two acres.

During your visit with the property did it seem to you that the house was half a million dollars away from sole condition?

I'm not informed really on I don't know that I can

I would say how much it would cost to... Yeah, did the house, did CV of the house needed much more work to be ready and to be in a condition to sell?

Yeah, I would say it was in a state of being renovated, remodeled, so things were partially finished or not finished and some of the features were pretty old.

Are you talking about those buildings or the second one?

Do you have a rebuttal?

Again, steep slope consideration is there as well.

Do you feel like everything is accurate now as far as it's being written?

notably in the land, as I've pointed out.

Two acre home sites.

And then there's a couple acres of that's regular residual land.

16 acres total, so something else.

oh no yeah I'm sorry that's all that's all of it I was oh I was remembering I think another so 13 acres are reduced by 60% correct from the right decision this says the subject property 16 acres 16 acres correct 16 take four acres out and it's 12 you got 12 and then out of that 12 how much of that was

That really be...

The unshaded red and everything that is... You just assigned four to it.

I assigned four, well, we assigned two to each, to each home site.

Yeah, I could come up with that.

Right, it's not livable at this time.

There was an expansion tank that was installed in the attic and the expansion tanks froze and burst and they had freeze during the winter.

8.73 includes the orphaned area and then is included in the total line.

You got 3.4 out there in the front yard.

So everything's been reduced 50% except for the two acres.

I'm sorry, I misstated that earlier.

How much you spent on that project?

Good for you.

Why was that done and under what circumstances would that have been done differently?

We see that house as substantially complete, and even though it's got a few issues, so instead of coming up with a percentage, we've put it into fair condition so that the difference is what it would take to bring it up to

That's the point that you felt that the two properties were roughly the same.

We should have interior photos of the main property.

There are a few issues that you can see in the picture, but nothing.

What are your big ticket renovation items remaining?

That's helpful.

Is that relative to a 1966 home?

So the A-, this would not be an A- if this was built today, but in 1966 it would be considered an A- less depreciation for the age.

So the 30% is the depreciation?

Well, it's a combination of the age and the conditions.

If the property were fully renovated, there wouldn't be the 30%.

instead of 30.

So he's getting basically a 22% credit off the value right now for the ongoing renovations.

Its value would still be reduced by 20 and it would have whatever depreciation applied for good.

So is it possible to sell one house without the other here?

but the ability to build a house has value for the land so that's why we have the second option.

It's a 1966 bathroom.

I think that's probably on every concrete we have.

OK.

So, a whole lot of hemming and hawing there.

What did you say the difference was gonna be between good and fair?

and I can tell you where they go from.

What comes after fair on the way down the scale?

The A minus one grade for the main house

It seems high.

And there's also- That minus one in 1966, yeah, now.

Good job.

That's what we're going to do.