Board of Equalization Meeting   6/12/2026

Good.

Morning is in progress.

Okay.

All right.

We'll call this order of the Albemarle County Board of Legalization to order June 12th, 2026.

Let's start with a roll call.

Frank Friedman here.

David Mitchell here.

David Norford here.

Tim Naughton here.

And let's for the record note that Mr. Naughton is here remotely.

Evan Mayo not here today.

We do have a quorum first.

All right.

We need to approve the minutes from the May 29th meeting.

Anybody had a chance to look it down some?

Move for approval.

All right.

Did you move for approval?

Yeah.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Minutes from the May 29th meeting are approved.

First hearing is application number 831150, part of them, Blue Lane, Tristan, and Catherine Fessel.

Did I say that correctly?

All right.

Before we get started, everybody who's going to testify will need to swear you in.

You promised that the testimony you're about to give is the truth.

Alright, so you'll have ten minutes to present your case, then the assessor will get a seven minute period, and you'll have three minutes to rebut that.

All right, cool.

My name's Tristan Fessel, as Artistan.

My wife and I own a home at 1150 Art Clover Court, which is on the northern side of Charlottesville.

We've been there since 2018.

Why I'm here today is because the assessed value at 596, I do not believe, aligns well or uniformly with the market value in our neighborhoods due to some list points in terms of garage, storage space, unfinished, no existing basement.

and we believe that $545,000 was a fair market value based on the variables that

I have pulled together today the three.

Two overlap with the assessor's packet as well, but I believe we're looking at slightly different focuses and emphasis.

So we'll go through that in the next few minutes.

What I believe the assessor's argument mostly focuses in on is the premium based strictly on the definition of GLA, so gross living area.

Excuse me, I'm not a real estate developer or expert, so I might butcher some terminology here, so just keep that in mind.

Again, that GLA at 2,404 square feet, and my hope is, and I acknowledge it larger than the variables that we're going to be looking at today, but I would argue that strict focus on GLA is unfair to what an actual owned buyer in this neighborhood would look for, which is going to be

basements, garages, unfinished space, screen and porches.

Many of the homes and also the comparables we're gonna look for today have those features.

My home does not.

Also renovations, near to end life, roof and HVAC, all those things.

So when taking that along to account that my home would, it should be aligned to that 545.

But no, don't take my word for it.

I'll just go through the numbers with you guys in a second.

So within the comparables we're gonna be looking at today, the ceiling is 589,000.

My home is above that by about $70,000 based on the assessed 2026 figures.

And so the question as to why am I that high, I already spoke to, is that GLA, I believe, and perhaps styled, which might be subjective, but I know it will technicalities that I can't speak to here.

But as far as what I see from the market data and what my neighbors went with,

is between 495,000 and 559,000.

And if you're following along with what I provided, that's just basically the summary I got through.

Going into the next section, which is the table that I'll invite you all to look at, I've tried on the first page.

You'll see that I have three comparables.

These were three verified sales that took place in my immediate neighborhood as well in the rain tree track.

I focused on these three because I thought that they not only showed similar value and features as to my own home, but also that they had additional features that while there's present such as

finished basements, garages, etc., that they still demanded a lower value than my own assessed value at this time.

So looking at the first comparable at 1778 Hearth Bloor Lane, this one was across the street from my own, so I get to look at a variety.

They sold for $5.59 a day in May of 2025,

It has 2,184 GLA, so about an inch less square feet than my own GLA.

However, it comes with 612 square feet of finished basement space.

Along with that, if you total that up, it's about near to 2,800 square feet, so larger finished footprint than my own home.

And also, it has an unconditioned unfinished space of 480 square feet, which brings its own utility and value to a home buyer.

Unlike my own home, which I lost my two-car garage due to renovation, which did add on GLA, this home does have a two-car garage.

It has been recently renovated.

It's already plank siding, has that finished basin, which was mentioned, screening ports, an additional half bath.

That sold for, again, 559, and that's $36,000 less than the assessed value of my own home, which is, again, across the street and a smaller home with aging systems.

The second comparable, which is 1754 Hearth Club, that's another two doors down from 1778, so another neighbor of mine.

They sold for $495.

That brought them 2,023 square feet in GLA.

It doesn't have a finished basement, but it does have a very large unfinished basement, which brings, like, if you were to look at it from a total usable space and utility, that would bring it to about 3,800 square feet.

And as Duke Arderage created forage and additional ad vats, it also backs up just like 1778 to a common area with no long term build plans, which comes with zone value to own buyer to know that you're back up to basically four citywide.

That sold in May 2025, again for $495 for $101,000 less than my assessed value currently.

And that 300, 400 square foot difference in GLA, I do not believe, comes in a premium of $100,000.

So that to me looks like it would underline my point of uniformity issues.

If I'm using that term all before it follows.

1216 rain trees, my third comparable that I'd like to call out.

Also, I believe assessor's absence to you as well.

which I didn't mention but $540,000 is what it sold for and that was back in September of 2025.

It has 2250 square feet in GLA so very close to my own home, the subject that we're talking about today of 2400.

but it also has a finished basement of 400 square feet and it comes to roughly about 2678 square feet of finished space which a home buyer would look at not just GLA.

It also has 700 square feet in terms of unfinished space that comes along with it and it comes with a number of premium features that I want to mention which are

Two car garage, newer build, a little newer, but it's been fully renovated.

So that's something to mention.

So it's modern, finished basement, additional two full bathrooms, and an oversized garage.

That garage has 700 square feet.

So just to wrap that all up, based on those three focused comparisons, you can see that while my property does have a higher GLA value in terms of square footage by about 150 square feet, 200, the premium features such as having a garage, having a basement, and having

screen porches, et cetera, still led to lower sale value of $56,000 difference.

So my home still is much higher by $56,000 in comparison to, say, Comp 3.

And looking at the neighborhood ceiling, just being hyper local here, if you look at

the Fieldbrook, Parkview Lane I pointed out $101,000 difference in one comp two and then the comp one that sets that ceiling of $559,800 and my house still is above that by $36,000 and then something I wanted to note is that the GIS information the county is holding and has I provide exhibit day photos of the garages as well as the improvement charts there's no mention of garages whatsoever on there and that

It's something that's sought after in that superior functionality.

With that superior functionality, it all sold well below that $596 valuation.

So a couple things, if I still have a couple minutes, I think I do.

I'll just mention that last year what led to the jump in value when the assessor stopped by was to take a look at the renovation that took place last year.

I want to make sure it's noted that this was an internal conversion, did not add on any concrete expansion of the foundation.

It was internal conversion of my garage into a clay room, an office, and hallway, and a small closet.

That was added last year in August.

And that does remove the utility of the garage.

If you have a car, especially as heat or the snow, you'll know that's something that buyers would like.

Also, something else to mention is that there was deferred maintenance.

The county team, the county assessor team did adjust this most of the way, but didn't get all the way.

So we have about $37,000 in terms of deferred maintenance.

That means roof gutters, skylights, and also the HVAC are nearing the end of their lives.

I have the estimates from that.

So when I was doing some innovation back last year,

I had Skylight placed in as part of the renovation.

They said you need to replace the whole thing, so I'm just giving you the evidence in exhibit B of those estimates that were provided to me, which leaves about $12,000 in terms of shortfall for those physical replacement costs.

So not only comparison and ignoring the deferred maintenance, my home value should be lower.

Also, there's deferred costs that would not be understood by the buyer until it got closer to offer, which would further discount the value of my own home.

Basically a wrap-up I'd like to say is that if we were to focus on above-grade GLA in sole focus, yes, my home has higher GLA.

Yes, it would be higher assessed.

But when you look at the other features that the homes in my neighborhood have, which are superior in terms of larger footprint and finished square footage, as well as unfinished screen and porches, garages that are attached,

These are expectations in our neighborhood and tracked.

And also with the significant deferred maintenance that I have, in comparison to these renovated homes that we're looking at today, my home should fall closer to that value rate from $545,000.

I hope that made sense.

So when we, one,

Mike Praiser, Patricia did the inspection earlier this year for the review.

We made sure that all of the data for this property is up to date.

So it's properly prescribed.

It's a one and a half story.

The grade is B minus one, which is correct.

And as Russell said, there's no basements.

The fact that there is no longer a garage because it was converted in the living area, the value is added for the living area, but there's no value added for the garage.

So on the comparables that have garages, the value is added for a garage.

So we show the difference that way in the assessments for the different properties.

I think I finally understand

where Mr. Fessel states in the beginning of his Reddit that the ceiling for the neighborhood, I'll read it so I get it right, market ceiling for the Raintree track is $589.

I believe he's saying that the highest sale in 2025 was $589.

So the properties can't be worth more than that.

I believe that's what he's saying.

That just, that's not true because this is just a snapshot of the properties that sold at 1.25.

There are superior properties that are larger properties in Raintree that are worth a lot more than 589, so that doesn't set any kind of ceiling.

Really what this sales

of all the comparable properties and the subject, the ratios from their sale prices are an appropriate range, in that the median is close to 100%, in this case 0.9916, and so the neighborhoods system doesn't mean that there aren't properties that are above or below those sale prices.

Also, and we've had a lot of conversations in meetings.

The basement finished area is just not as valuable as above grade.

So I think people do get value out of their basements when they're finished.

It's just not, they don't pay as much for that area as they do for above grade finish.

So we treat them separately.

We value them.

We give them both value.

We just don't give the basement finished area the same amount of value as above grade.

So if you have a 3,000 square foot above grade and a 2,000 above grade and a 1,000 finished in the basement, those are not the same.

and the market says they're not the same.

And we have a lot of market information that kind of shows that.

So I believe that we have all of the issues that Mr. Fessel's raised.

I think we are adjusting for all of those in the assessment.

The first is just a, well I guess in the,

Assessor's package under comps, they're not the same as the comps.

That is correct.

No, the owner provided comps that are in the assessor's package.

Oh, the owner.

Oh, yes.

We have, I've got a 16 range tree, 1778 bar flow, and 1600 old growth.

That is correct.

Okay.

Okay.

So we updated the packet.

I had sent it to you guys through the email, through email so you would see it.

We didn't actually update

okay all right since then second question can you address maybe one thing we might be missing here is the difference between a two-story and a one or one and a half story yes so we've also talked a lot about how the first floor area is generally more valuable than the second but a one-story house is a higher rate per square foot than a two-story house because of the second floor area so

There's one and a half is just halfway in between those two so the rate is a little higher for it's in between a one story and a two story for a one and a half story so because you don't have as much second floor area in comparison to first floor.

So that would have a bearing on the difference in the base rate?

It would yes it would it would have a higher

and that's one of the differences between these comparables, the comparables that are provided by the owner, all three of those are two stories.

So they would automatically be a lower base rate and therefore a lower value.

And ultimately, we don't dictate what people pay for their houses, we're just reflecting our model based on what they pay for their houses.

Yeah.

I believe that is true, yes.

So how is that

Yes, so the way we value it is we would add, so to answer the first question, the way it shows up in the comparables is in the sub-area totals in the grid.

So it's in those numbers.

So comp one, it's 84,000, that's, part of that is garage, part of it is decks and screen porches, any items like that.

So that increases the assessment of the comparables.

No, there's not a negative on the subject for not having a garage.

It's because he doesn't have a garage, we don't add value for a garage.

On your Comp 4, there's a sub-area total of $52,000.

That's great.

Can you tell me how much of that is a two-car garage?

Yes, I'm assuming it's not a fast.

It's at least 600 square feet-ish.

Sorry, I have to do a little math.

Brush, 11,440, five times,

On the subject property?

On the subject property, yeah.

He's got a shop, let me go back to that one, I was just looking.

The stated, one, four, five, six, two.

It's got a shop and some unfinished living area and a patio.

Okay.

So it includes all of these items up here, bathrooms, fireplaces, cooling, roofing, and then the specific

I'm still trying to inform, you know, when you compare the one and a half story and the two story, the market has shown different valve symptoms and that is reflected in the base rate.

Is there similar data on garage versus no garage and how that would affect a base rate?

Yes, so we have

We don't subtract from a property for not having a garage, if that's what you're asking.

We add when it has it.

Can I ask you a quick question?

So on average, how much are you adding?

So for the one example for comp four, you're adding $15,000.

Let me make sure that that is a two-car garage.

I'm assuming it is, but that's one of them, 694.

This is a one-car garage.

It's 13 by 22.

Basement garages we treat a little differently.

Space for a garage, you know, basically.

I don't know off the top of my head.

Right.

to your base ring.

We don't necessarily do it like that.

So you look at your comps that have sold.

You assign values to various elements of it.

Correct.

The garage, the porch, the sun areas.

Right.

Then you compare

And if you're not, you would adjust either the base rate or sub-area of values to get yourself to.

And then you would take those new base rates and sub-areas that have been indicated by the sales and apply them across the board to everybody.

Those are the new table values.

Now we don't, when we do the sales studies, which was similar to what you see at the beginning of our report, basically page two, that's a sales study of our writing.

When we do those sales studies, we can break down all the sales in the county by grade, by one story versus two story, all of those.

But it's in your evaluation.

But it is in evaluation.

It is, yeah.

Right.

In those sub areas, all of those items, we do a study of how much thatch adds.

And typically that's based by cost, at least as to start with.

So we come up with those.

Sometimes the cost isn't necessarily appropriate because it's more of a how much would somebody pay for that if it's in the home, but the cost is kind of our basis.

And we went through a huge review of all of our

sub-areas this year for 2026 to make sure we were up to date with those values.

Okay, we're offering garages now, right Jeff?

Yeah, overall.

So it comes into condition.

Yes, and we have his property in average plus condition.

arrived at after base rate and sub areas are all put together.

Everything's put together, correct.

Correct.

Okay.

So just one more comment on the garage.

If I'm doing some quick calculations,

By converting the garage to livable space, it looks like that increased the value of the home by in the neighborhood of just roughly 30 or $40,000.

Yeah, I don't know exactly how much it was.

It sounds right.

Oh, it's two car, right.

It was the total conversion.

Oh, okay.

So when she picked up the conversion of the garage, the total value added was $61,400.

Is that right?

Yes, sir.

Any other questions for the assessor?

Sure.

So as we went through all that, just listening in, the home jumped up significantly in its assessed value from 2025 to 2026.

The comparables I showed all, yeah, while they do have the low grade, and I do understand that come with less utility, everyone knows someone who lives in a basement some point in their life, or has put a living room in there, they all provide values to a buyer.

I want to underline that all these homes have larger space than my own.

They all have two-car garages still attached.

And also they all were renovated.

The average plus or average B plus, whatever it is, my own home.

The last time the kitchen was renovated was in 1999.

The appliances are failing at this point, and I have to use only a lighter than stove top.

Of course, I'm gonna replace that soon.

But that needs to be noted that the home is not modern like the three comparables that I have shared today.

The garage space that was converted was internal conversion, and we still left one garage bay as a unfinished storage space.

So one bay was made into a playroom with a closet, so better.

And then the second floor made into an office along with an HVAC closet

for the aging HVAC that I mentioned earlier that needs to be swapped out.

So given the comparables showing they all sold for significantly less on average around $50,000 to $60,000 less for larger homes with more utility and updated features,

I'm hoping that the board sees that from a person who's a home buyer, they would value these more, especially in this given area where the assessor's packet on the first page, it says that what makes the price differences is the GLA, style, basement and garage.

So basement and garage, neither are present on my slab at home.

The garage is no longer there.

Style perhaps, I think it can cause look nice.

I like my house.

but maybe not this much in price.

And the GLA, yes, slightly larger based on strict definitions.

I probably could have asked you the question at the beginning

Are we all on the same page that they have your home accurately represented as it is today, bought a living space, renovations, you know, garage was converted and so forth?

Well, I would argue on two points is that on the average plus grade relies on the renovated stitching from 27 years ago.

and I would say that that does not equate to an average plus grade.

Though I do know that was not the focus of the assessor's visit.

It was the swap out of my concrete floor for vinyl planking and drywall.

I can see what that looks like.

Well, I meant more that the dimensions are correct and you do have a shed in the back.

Yeah, a small vinyl shed.

And where is the, what he's saying is the unfinished storage area?

I believe right here.

The shop top left?

Yeah.

I mean, the visual is not representative of what it looks like, but yeah, measurements are correct.

It has a very large hall that doesn't look like that.

You do understand the difference in value between a two-story and one of a hand?

At least in terms of valuation, but real world, my layman's mind says this house sold with larger square footage for 100,000 hours less or 50,000 hours less with more features.

That's what brought me here today.

I'm not sure that we have any evidence that the assessment is really wrong.

I'm going to say that's an assessment.

Frank, do you have any thoughts?

Anybody have a motion?

I have a second.

Second.

Alright, we have a motion and a second to affirm the assessor's assessment of 1150 Hearthglow Lane, application 83, 596, 700, 596,700.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Did you say 586?

596, whatever it says.

Okay.

Well, I think there's really one more.

I'm Ryan Mitchell, Peter Lynch.

All right, we ready to start?

You ready?

Yeah.

Sorry, this is a, excuse me.

You ready?

I'm going to.

You told me to remind you.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, so anybody that's going to get a testimony, we need to swear you in.

Do you swear that the information you're about to give is the truth?

Yes.

Thank you.

Application number 74.

1132 Olympia Drive, Mr. Brian Gutterman.

All right, so you'll have 10 minutes to present your evidence, and as you said, you'll have seven minutes to present your evidence, and then you'll have a period for a rebuttal.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, so

That's my house at 1132.

I don't know if it's at the intersection of two very busy streets.

I understood in 2022 we did pay 715 for it.

That was at a very turbulent time in the market.

I do feel like we bought it to be top at the time to buy it was April 2022, right when the low interest rates were starting to significantly rise.

And we did pay about

in the 90K over asking for it.

It was a rather desperate time.

Not something we feel great about today, but we have to live with it.

I do not see support for an $886,000 valuation on this to the extent that if any one of you were to offer that value today, we would accept.

without hesitation.

The recent sales of two houses on Verona that went between $700,000 and $720,000 and then one on Olympia for $715,000.

I do understand those are lower values.

Sorry, I do understand they're smaller square footage, but those aren't recent.

Those do have the same location obstructions that my property faces.

And there's another one close by, Montalcino, that went for around 750, 755.

So you might see that as more of a comparable.

However, that house is on a private street where there are kids that can easily go outside without a warning.

My daughter rides her bike around our house because of the traffic, as much as it hurts us to say no to her.

So secondly, you refer to B plus one grading.

I wasn't too familiar with that term, but if we talk about the conditions of the house, I would say the ones that have sold, the three that I mentioned, as well as the several houses mentioned in the assessor's report.

I'm looking at the pictures, those are all, the interior pictures, those are all turnkey ready to sell houses.

We are considering selling our house.

Not sure of the price yet, but we do anticipate either way a pretty heavy investment in the interior to get the house to where we think it needs to be to sell.

I would also say just the buyer behavior somewhat wasn't enough taken into account in the assessor's

Assessment.

I would say the three houses that I mentioned much more reflect buyer behavior.

The house will be a tough sell.

There's not much backyard.

The street location is less than ideal.

And additionally, the square footage appears big.

Well, I'll say the second, the first and second floors are somewhat average size.

The basement is big, but this is a large, empty, not very well-designed space.

So it's not exactly unusable.

And I wouldn't really say the value per square foot is a linear increase.

You can't really just take the dollar per square foot of a smaller house and just apply it to mine.

It's not like my house is a piece of deli meat that was sold by the pound.

We haven't made any improvements to the house.

or any significant improvements.

We don't plan to.

So don't really understand the fact 10% increases the past few years that just doesn't line up with our expectations of what we'd be able to sell the house for at this time.

And I also want to point out this house that was located at 1086 Olympia.

This was a recent development.

It's down the street from us.

We think it's more representative of what our cellar experience would be.

And it's on a similar busy road.

It has more of a backyard than ours.

Similar size, bedroom count.

That was on the market for a little under $800,000 and was taken off the market because it didn't sell.

So, in short, I would look more towards the buyer-seller behavior in our area rather than the metrics from

The assessor report in that the fair market value is what somebody will pay for our house.

And a value approaching 900K is just not something I would expect at this time.

So I appreciate your time.

So let me ask a question before you get started, Mr. Lynch.

Can you,

Yeah, so Olympia Drive, that's what intersects with Verona.

That's the main entry point into our neighborhood.

And then Verona Drive, cars zoom back and forth on that constantly.

And you keep pulling out.

and one of those other parcels, a few houses down, that sold about a year ago.

One of the houses on Verona sold about a year ago for like in the sixes.

I wouldn't say our value is that low, but it was a little bit of, it was discouraging to see that sale.

And yes, we've been watching this closely lately because we were thinking about selling.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so we've provided the comparable properties from the neighborhood.

We believe that the subject and the comparables are all valued appropriately to take the sales

where the sale prices are close to the assessments for each property, which means the model's working properly.

There's differences between the subject property and the comparable, and that's all taken into account in the model.

Well, at the time that I took the property, the overall condition,

you know, is appropriately expressed in our model as average typical depreciation, you know, significant repairs.

I didn't see anything wrong with it.

It's since been fixed.

but it's something to fix.

I don't believe so.

When I look at the assessor provided or the owner provided comps,

Two are on Verona, and then one is on Olympia.

And the numbers provided have the land value at 195 for all of them.

So it doesn't seem like there's a difference between Olympia or Verona in terms of the land value.

Am I reading that correctly?

Right, however, if you look at the assessor provided with Thompson via Florence, as well as Montecino,

The land lines are also the same.

Okay, so what you're saying is, you know, Florence is a quiet residential spot.

Yeah, fair enough.

However, the sales don't show that.

If you look at the sale price to assessment on those comparables, on the owner-provided comps, comparable number one is assessed below the sale price by about 20,000, comparable number two is about $47,000 above the sale price, and comparable number three is about $16,000 below the sale price.

Well, I can't really speak to the models.

I mean, I do see one was valued $50,000 under what it had to sell for.

1775 Verona, 1778, they're right, one's next to us, one's across the street.

Our house is not $150,000 to $200,000 more valuable than those houses.

I just can't buy that.

A model may produce it, but it's not like a buyer's gonna say,

Oh, this house is x square feet higher.

That's clearly a linear increase in value.

So I've lived in this neighborhood for the past four years.

I've watched the sales activity closely, and I just don't see how long, how it's like a one for one square foot of size.

If it's anything that's 86 value, like,

Maybe the value I provided was a little aggressive on the low side, but close to $900,000.

Yeah, you can see Montocino right there.

It's a private cul-de-sac.

And then if you go, Via Florence is right there.

Our friends live at the cul-de-sac, you can see on the bottom left of the screen where you just were.

We drive by, the vehicle wants to get there, the car drives slow, the kids are playing in the streets.

I have one other question, which is on the subareas total.

I continue to have a hard time understanding how those values are determined.

When I look at the subject property, the subareas total is pretty high.

It's just under $175,000.

And I can see, you know, from the, we have about 66,000 from the basement.

And so it means there's about 100,000 coming from other stuff.

No, the basement is finished.

So sorry if I may have said it's unfinished.

It's finished, but there just isn't very simple carpet drop ceiling.

A basement, I have a question, but I might type in these numbers as I answer.

Y'all, above your sub-areas title, got unfinished basement value and then got finished basement value.

The unfinished basement value overall, the square footage, whether finished or not, multiplied by some number, which I'm correct, $18 to $19 of square footage.

Then the finished is an additional amount added just to that finished area.

Okay.

So the unfinished, that's for the whole basement,

Yeah.

Can you add on the $40,000 for the finished part?

That's correct.

I had a question about the two.

Yeah, so you're given $28 to $32 a square foot to finish a piece.

You're gonna take the $19 for just like spent

Finished or not?

Okay.

Yes.

Any more questions?

I have a question.

Is the braid B1?

Is there any adjustment for the quality of the finished basement area?

who would apply that to the lower one.

Then you would add, then the finished one, you'd have different rates based on how it's finished out.

Correct.

When you were speaking, it sounded like you were a little bit unclear about the difference between condition and grade.

explain that to us.

Oh sure, the grade of the home is which is the quality of construction is a B plus one.

The condition of the home as Dana was discussing is average for a house building to build for it.

So if it was brand new, that would be zero?

Yeah, the question I have, if you look at the assessor provided comps, especially comp for 1926 speed of Lawrence Road,

That comes in at a total value of about $45,000 less than the subject total.

Can you explain what is causing that difference?

There's two main things.

The B grade compared to the B plus grade.

So you've got a different multiplier there.

And then the lack of a,

You have just a B. I see B1 and B2.

B is a number, right?

B is a grade.

Correct.

So the B plus one, I did find it to be a B plus one built up based on the flying failure with the turn staircase.

It's got nine foot interior ceilings, standard kitchen cabinetry and island, the upgraded appliances and finishes and hardwood floors, the expanded deck and patio and the rock accent landscape walls.

Do you agree that the House has those features?

Yes, it does.

But I think the point of the deliberation affecting biobank animals is still alive.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't know how you're going to discount it for location without discounting all that.

There's no evidence that there's a difference in sale prices based on

I'll second that.

So there's a motion and a second for application number 741132, Olympia Drive, to affirm the assessor's number of 886,300.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Noted.

Thank you.

I think there will be a moderation order for a bunch of years, I think, those years, that the people will get a great weight from raises who are going to decrease a little.

Most likely they'll just kind of hold steady.

So that the floor's a little bit of a supervisor for an accident.

They want more money and it can't just depend on assessments that he's going on.

They're going to have to raise the deficit.

I mean, basically, they get spoiled for 12 years.

and, you know, Mr. Miller, I mean, that's his case.

Well, you're an old girl, and you take time for people to fight the bullet and get hit.

It depends on our feelings, it depends on our mortgage rates.

Congrats, OE, and I remember they were doing it for seconds every year.

They used to do it every single year.

and they switched every year when it was going up real fast.

They started going down.

I'm like, we'll go back to two years.

I'm like, no, no, no, we're good.

It's a lagging indicator.

It's just the way it is.

Are we ready for this one?

Yes.

All right, this is application number 62, Mr. Bennett, 433 Ednam Drive.

Need to swear you in if you're going to offer testimony.

All right, yep.

Do you swear that the information you're about to give us is the truth?

Sir.

Okay.

So you'll get 10 minutes to present your case and then the Assessor's Office will have seven minutes and then you'll have some time to revolve.

So go ahead.

All right, thanks.

It didn't.

It didn't.

And yeah, just wanted to note too, I apologize.

It looks like the photos came out as black and white being submitted.

So if you want to look at it, I should show or maybe we might go down the screen, but some of the stuff I'll share in the future.

Okay, well let's get into it.

We'll start with just item one here, the land.

So our total lot size, 3.751 acres.

The county's made note repeatedly in their view, this is one of the larger lots in Endham Forest.

We acknowledge that.

We're not contesting the acreage.

However, we've been trying since 2023 to get it accurately assessed in terms of the restrictions of the steep slope ordinance and I'll go to the board here just so I can show you what I'm talking about.

The county in their brief put this map in.

It doesn't have the topo lines, which is significant.

I'll talk about that in a sec.

Hold on, I'm going to turn them on.

Okay, yeah, if you could.

Actually, if you could take away the photo and put up the topo lines, that would be good.

Thanks for doing that.

Yeah, so you can put the sea flow overlay back on.

Right, okay, perfect.

Yeah, so just to recap, steep slope ordinance, right?

Preserved slopes can't be touched.

Managed slopes that have been previously disturbed also have restrictions.

You can with a waiver, but basically all of this land we can't do anything with.

I'll also note that if you read the topo lines, I don't know if you have a hundred foot on here, but basically if you start on a line and you cross more than six lines,

Over 100 feet, that's over 25%.

So there's many areas of this that don't actually accurately reflect steep slopes.

Like this entire region is a steep slope.

This entire region is a steep slope.

And there's also a drainage use in which I mentioned that in the bottom of this ravine, so you can see where the topo lines point, this is a drainage.

There's a stream in there, which is also protected by the stream buffer ordinance.

So we're submitting that this is the only part of the site, it's about an acre, it's actually 0.8 acres, when I drew it on the viewer, that the only part of the property that should be graded as residential, and that everything else should be subject to that discount.

So that's that.

Where did you draw away on this?

So yeah, I need to just reclaim my time so we can keep going here.

So the quality grading, the other issue is the quality grading.

So this was originally assessed as A, grade A. I just want to remind the board that this is, A means exceeds building codes.

And after we requested initial reassessment in 2024, after putting about $150,000 into the property, the county lowered the grading from A to A-1.

So that means we bought it, it was graded A, we improved it, and they came in and looked at it and they said, well, actually, no, you're right, it's A-1.

which means they have been overgrading us.

Now I understand we're only talking about 2026, but I can assure you we plan to seek redress for the overtaxation in those previous years.

Point being, the county also raised the multiplier on A minus one from 1.68 to 1.8.

A is graded at 1.94, 1.8 over 1.94, 93%.

So property has to be 93% of grade A in order to be A minus one.

Now, according to the county's model,

and you can see in the pictures numerous items I've pointed out to show that there are many aspects to this property that are below grade A.

That's partly why we bought it, because it was cheap and we were gonna improve it.

I'll go through a few other specifics.

The roof, they call it dimensional.

It's asphalt shingle.

I'd like the multiplier to be changed to zero, equal to composite.

Asphalt shingles, even quote, architectural shingles, are actually cheaper these days than composite shingles.

So I can't see how this roof is any more expensive than a composite roof.

And that's in their RVM, their residential value model.

So I want that knocked down to zero.

It's also not consistent with the A grade.

The siding, they've said multiple times it's weatherboard.

It's not weatherboard.

It's painted wood.

Weatherboard, at least in the US, does not mean that.

It doesn't mean wood siding.

Wood siding, again, according to the value model multiplier of zero,

It's also in the grade guide, it's more consistent with B or C than A.

So that again supports lowering the grading.

Okay, so that's the roof, the siding, functional obsolescence.

So the county did have 10% functional obsolescence added to the assessment for several years prior, and then it mysteriously disappeared from the property card in 2024 with no explanation.

Now I don't know if that was an error or whatnot, but it's clear that there's functional obsolescence from a house built in 1983 versus a house built with modern construction.

And I'll just point to the beams as being one example.

So these days you can get an engineered wood beam that enables you to have a nice big open space, right?

We have a bunch of 40 year old metal supports throughout the house, not just in the basement, but also throughout the main floor, which inhibit our ability to open up

spaces makes renovation more complicated.

It made the recent remodeling more expensive.

There's old HVAC, there's windows that haven't been replaced, pictures shown right here.

So we're asking the board to institute 10% functional obsolescence.

Now let's talk about the basement.

So the county made the point of reassessing or I guess finally noticing that there was a basement garage on their fifth trip up to the property in 10 years.

What they failed to do was back out the square footage, right?

So they just tacked that on.

They didn't back out the square footage for the basement.

And even though I pointed this out to them twice, they continue to assess our basement as a walkout.

It's a partial basement.

It's completely underground.

The door going into the garage is completely underground.

There's a steep slope basically where the garage is then

makes it possible to actually drive out of the garage, but there's no door that leads out of the legal basement.

So it's not a walkout.

It's not a walkout legally.

We can't put egress windows in.

We can't put any windows in.

And it's not a walkout as a realtor would describe it.

Now, they have also highlighted 440 Rookwood, which they're going to talk about, I think, as being a comparable.

Well, we agree that they grade in both of these houses as A minus one, but I encourage you to look at the photos, 440 Rookwood, because they have a true walkout basement.

And it's much more useful than ours, right?

I also will point out they only tacked that on after we told them we were going to appeal.

So we didn't want to correct it for years previously.

And then all of a sudden we decided to appeal and then they correct it.

You can make that what you will.

But so I'm asking for it to be graded as partial underground.

That's 11.55 per square foot average grade.

And then the one to two car basement garage.

I'm not disputing that we have a garage.

and then lastly the pool, the main issue here is that the multiplier again went up drastically, 66 square feet last year, 66 per square feet to 9880 per square foot.

Now if construction costs for new pools go up, there are a lot of factors at work that drive that.

That has to do with the labor market, it has to do with the availability of raw materials, it has to do with a lot of things.

That doesn't mean that an existing pool, especially a pool built in 83, is gonna go up by 50% in value.

the next year.

That doesn't happen.

If new construction costs are going up, I guarantee you the renovation costs are going up.

And we've started to get quotes on repairing the pool.

and Ballpark to do the plastering, the tiling, the deck and the infrastructure, you know, the pump system and everything like that.

To bring it up to like new, it's probably gonna be about 40,000.

So that to me suggests that it's under-depreciated as well.

I think it's probably worth about 20,000 right now.

We put 40,000 into it, we get it back up to its previous value.

It's never gonna be as valuable as a new pool.

Lastly, so,

The county is presenting the email that we sent to them showing the percent increase in our property assessment versus our neighbors.

So you can see our taxes went up 28.7% from 2025 to 2026.

All the houses adjacent to us that did not have major improvements, they went up between 11 and, what is it, 23.5%.

So we're the highest in that little cluster in Ednam Forest.

The reason I sent this to these guys is because when I asked them, why did our property values go up so much?

They said, well, that's Ednam Forest.

Well, it seems like ours are going up more.

So we didn't present these as comparables to our house.

We presented them to show that our increase was much greater than that of our neighbors.

And I think I've just explained to you why.

The multiplier for A minus one went up, even though I don't really think it's A minus one.

especially at 440 Brookwood is eight minus one, right?

And there are various other things that aren't even consistent with eight grading as well.

So it's not clear to me why we're getting dinged with that kind of an increase.

And that's why we're requesting the board to make these revisions accordingly to bring our assessed value down.

How much more time do I have?

All right, now we'll hear from the assessor's office.

Okay, so Lewis can speak to some of this probably better than I can, but the roof is a dimensional roof, dimensional shingles.

So I have a question about that.

What is the definition of weatherboard?

Because to me, it's wood siding.

It's wood siding, yes.

Hardyplank.

Hardyplank is Hardyplank.

It's actually named Hardyplank.

We have an item for that.

And functional obsolescence, Lewis, why don't you speak to functional obsolescence on this property?

Because you don't have functional obsolescence just by being an older home.

I believe it was the functional that was on there before

When that, because it was a contemporary house?

Was it what?

Contemporary house?

A contemporary designed house.

I think so.

Contemporary, comfortable on them.

Yes.

So we changed from where you have a

In the past, we would have had a functional obsolescence for contemporary.

We have it as a separate base rate for that style.

So we are addressing that same reason why we had the functional on there before.

We're just doing it a different way.

It's included in the base rate.

Right, so the table itself that's used for a regular one and a half story, this is a one and a half story, is 142.50 base rate for a contemporary one and a half story is 126.

So, and I can explain that also.

When you, the basement garage is unfinished basement that has garage doors attached.

You start at a base rate for unfinished basement and you add something for garage.

Correct.

It's finished garage.

But you don't back out.

We don't back anything.

The unfinished basement base rate, you leave that on there.

Right.

So it's part of the value

coming up with this whole value for it.

Where is it showing the value to the pool?

The pool is an out building and we are valuing the pool at 50%.

45,000.

It's actually 33,833 and that's basically if it was a brand new pool, it would be 67 cents.

It would be how much?

67,600, but we're assessing it at 50%.

45,100, that's before you multiply by the discount.

That's all the outbuildings.

Yes.

So there's no separate number for the pool?

Yeah, there are actually five outbuildings.

And so yeah, we have all the separate value for all of them.

So 33-8 for the pool, a storage building, several patios, typically that's- And how do you define a walkout basement?

Well, a walkout basement is where you can actually walk out of the basement with a door, not necessarily

So is this a walkout basement or is this a underground basement?

If you would get out through the basement or through the garage.

So you got a basement, you've got garage doors.

The only way out of that is by the outside of the garage door.

Come through the garage door, go through the garage, go to the finished basement area.

Right.

So the only access

from outside, it's through the garage?

It's through the garage.

I would not consider that a walkout basement.

Okay, so we may need to, are you considering that walkout basement on this assessment?

Yes.

Okay, so that's one issue.

What about, I see already there's a significant discount for topography.

Yes, there is.

What are, you want more of a discount?

I just want the acreage to be correct.

I admit that they've already given a discount.

It took a while.

If you look back at the property records, originally they gave me 5%.

Right.

Now it seems to be correct at 50% for the preserves.

So there are 3.751 acres.

Is that correct?

The total acreage is correct.

What I'm requesting is for the primary building site, the one acre, which is about one acre, to be assessed at the residential rate.

That's what we're doing with it.

We have one acre as a home site, which we reduced by 10% and we have the remaining.

That's not correct.

The assessment I received said 1.751 acres at the reduced rate of two acres.

Unless you guys changed it after.

One site's 201 acres.

We can bring the map up.

But I just need to be clear about this.

That's, I mean, Mr. Boyko's saying that that's what they did, that's not what they did.

Sure, but let's- Is it that the part of the lot that is not critical slope and so forth is not assessed at a reduced rate?

I'm not sure.

This record shows that there we have one acre for the home site.

Okay.

And what value?

At 436,500.

So that should be...

436,500.

That should leave 2.751 acres.

Correct, and that 2.751 acres is reduced 50% and it's at 100,000.

Sorry, what is it before you right now?

2026 property card that their office sent me and it doesn't say that.

I think I know what the problem is.

As we were looking at this, preparing for the hearing weeks ago, what Mr. Bennett is arguing actually would increase the value

for now, I wouldn't say if you- Hold on a second.

Let me explain.

So the home site's gonna be $430 some thousand dollars.

You told me 436.5.

And then you reduced that by 10%, so it's 392.85.

No, no, no, that was reduced.

That's after the reduced by 10%.

So that is a 10%.

That is a 10% reduction.

The base is 485.

That's what I was doing.

So, sorry if I could just ask 485 per... Just for a one-acre site.

We're not going to take... We're going to give you plenty of time.

All right.

We just want to get everything straight.

We don't...

That's fine, but I just want to just remind you all, I'm looking at my 2026 property card and it doesn't matter what you're saying.

Are you one line or you got a copy?

The copy that I requested, yeah, we gave him a copy.

And it still says two acres, it still says two acres residential and 1.751 steep slope.

And what values does it put?

What I would like to

We just got to get to the value.

Something changed here.

And I remember this is one of those things that we changed it to the one acre.

with the remainder, and... What do you value the remainder at, Karanka?

The residual is... Oh, because, okay, so like I said, the one acre home site, even though we had it as two acres before, it's the same value.

A home site in Edmond Forest is the same value, is one value, adjusted for things like Topo.

By breaking out an additional acreage as extra land, we're adding an additional extra acre of land to the value.

So a two-acre at a base of 485 would reduce

and so it took the two acres away from the 3.175 acres and therefore only left you 1.58.

That is correct.

And now you're going to end up with a residual of 2.175.

Right.

So the confusion here is, and what he's going to be upset about when I just say this, is that you had a two acre listing at 485.

Now you're going to have a one acre listing at 485.

Correct.

It's the same base 485.

Correct.

It is the same base 485 and it's based on a one acre.

And that's the error that we just found as I was reviewing this to prepare for this.

Okay, go ahead.

I'm not going to say what all of the... Just the land, just the land.

So that's the... Where he fell for the base.

Yeah, I can tell you what it is.

Can I just jump in for a second here?

I think as a board we need to sort of have this discussion ourselves but it seems illogical for an acre of land to be unusable and for that to increase the value of the collective area of land.

So, you know, I don't think it makes sense to, I don't think it makes sense at all to make that type of adjustment.

No, I think there's confusion, Mr. Naughton.

It's just the way we set up his record in this parcel.

You're absolutely right.

A two-acre parcel would have more value than a one-acre parcel.

So you would have a one acre home site on both of those parcels at $485.

And on the two acre parcel, you would then have a one acre residual area at $72,750.

That's added to the home site.

That would make it more valuable than the one next to it.

Okay, so what you're saying is the okay, so the reason it's going up is because there was an error in

There was an error in assigning two acres to this parcel instead of one acre.

Correct.

Mr.

Friend, what do you understand that?

Well, then in that case, I agree with the individual who's speaking remotely.

There has to be some way to discount

The value of the land to reflect its actual utility and its actual market value.

But it's being increased in acreage by... Yeah, if I can jump in for a second here.

So what we're doing on the main lot is we're reducing topography by 10%.

If in fact half of that two acre site is not usable because it's a steep slope,

It's a one acre site.

Oh, sorry.

I'm still backing.

Yeah.

My apologies.

That's right.

I understand now.

What's the yellow box?

Yellow is the three different types of critical slope.

The yellow is the lowest.

Yes, that would increase the total assessment to 1,942,100.

I've changed the assessment to part underground instead of walkout, and that's what

Mr. Bennett definitely looked at our model right off.

I commend him for that.

Those are the instructions that you sent out.

Not a lot of people read it.

Well, you thought it was a mistake.

And to be clear, it's not that it's not, the usability is varied.

This is not a commercial site where you can like, I can or can't use this.

if you want to be right up against your neighbor, you'd like to have woods, protection, buffers, I mean, it has value.

You cannot say because it's not usable, it has no value.

Right, and I could come back and argue that we're already paying for that in terms of the minimum lot size requirements in Ednam and the Ednam multiplier, right?

So in Ednam, you can't get a house

Except all of their neighbors have paid theoretically to live there on their various lots, and then they get discounts like you're getting, 50%.

No, what I'm saying is the proportion of steep slopes on our lot is greater as the county acknowledged.

Like we said, his parcel is one of the larger ones, so it has a lot more effect than other parcels.

Well, I mean, what's the percentage?

So somebody had a two acre lot.

and they had the same square footage of critical slopes on their lot as he does.

They would get a more than 50% reduction because a higher percentage of their lot is covered.

Well, if that's the argument, then I'd like the acreage to be measured more precisely.

Because if we're really talking about the primary home site, it's 0.8 acres.

And like I said,

You look at the topo map, that little irregular slice north of the house should be marked as steep slope.

So, I mean, it needs to be assessed accurately.

And I would just remind the board too, preserve steep slopes.

You can't do anything with that.

I can't build a tree house, right?

I'm not allowed to do anything per the ordinance.

I'm not allowed to do anything.

Correcting this issue with the land would increase the value.

I wouldn't ask you to increase the value just to affirm the assessment.

You're not asking us to do that?

It's fair to say you'll just have to correct this next year.

Yeah, we have the record correct.

If you wanted to argue about the acreage he's talked about, how would that be?

There's two questions there.

One is the area of the home site versus the area of steep slope.

And then the other question is getting the inclusion of more of the property as steep slopes and getting it discounted by 50 percent.

So I guess you're asking we'd have to get a topo survey in that ravine and prove to somebody that that was actually a steep slope.

But if it's not going to lower the assessment because of the

The strange way, in my opinion, that this is being valued, then I'm not going to do it, right?

But can I ask, so we've only talked about the basement and land.

I'm not too great about the signing argument.

All right, well then in the basement, yes.

All right, well, I'll just make, I'd like to at least have an opportunity to speak a little bit more about the gradings and the functional obsolescence.

I mean, if you go back and look at the property cards, there's no coherent story about the grading.

The grading was graded as A, prior to some improvements, and even though the notes say that for the previous owner that the bathrooms were dated, they kept the grading as A,

Like I said, we made improvements.

They lowered the grading, right?

Which tells me that the grading was too high to begin with.

And I would maintain too that the property, you know, the house built in 1983 is not gonna be as easy to remodel and it's not gonna be as functionally useful as a house built today for a number of reasons.

I mean, you've got outlets that are up to code.

There's, you know, there's HVAC that's not up to code.

There's numerous elements like that that, per the grade guide, need to be reflected.

And they, in my opinion, they're not being reflected in the assessment.

So, I mean, I'd like to account for that somehow.

If you're not going to lower the grading, I would again ask the board to at least consider that some functional obsolescence is present in the property.

Oh yeah, I understood it based on the contemporary.

They've lowered the factor.

Yeah, but my arguments don't have to do with the contemporary design versus traditional.

They have to do with the, like I said.

Well then they're also discounting it by 18% for aging condition.

But they would do that anyway based on the year of construction.

And that, the depreciation tables, I think you guys know are pretty flat, right?

Year end condition.

That's what I mean.

It's not just a date of construction.

It's a date of construction and the condition of it.

And if we haven't renovated yet, then we shouldn't.

That's my point.

Certain ones, but if you look through the photos it's not complete.

So we spent about $150,000 to put in a kitchen island and renovate the upstairs bathrooms and put in some new energy-efficient windows.

We still have about half the windows.

that need replacing.

We still have to update the ductwork.

There's a lot of ductwork that's not code.

It's really inefficient.

We still have to update the electrical.

We have a panel in there.

One of the panels is, I think, original.

We still have to, excuse me, take care of the exterior, like I mentioned, and I would,

continue to point out that there's no reason that the roof and the siding should be graded the way they are.

There are zero multipliers that, in my view, perfectly apply to this house, and there's no reason why it should be overvalued.

So I have a question.

On the assessment history, it has 2026, $1,903,700.

owner provided comps, and Ondon.

Also, a successful provided comp is 1,917, Evan.

I'm sorry, start that over again.

Here on assessment history for 2026, your first page.

1,903,700.

Okay.

Accessible provided comps, 1,917,000, Evan.

The $1,907,000 was a change we made on an admin review prior to the board so it was this this page was not updated to include the correct

917 is?

Can you give me a number if we adjust for the basement?

Right, so it would drop to 1,905,700.

But there's another problem with this.

You know, we have this in average condition.

The applicant just stated he spent $150,000 renovating the kitchens and bathrooms.

That's not average condition.

That's average plus or good.

But that's not new information.

You visited the property twice.

You did visit the property.

After that happened.

Okay.

So that's not, I'm not providing any, by definition,

Once you've come and looked at the property once after that's happened, that's it.

I'm sorry, you're not correct.

When I was there, and I went there this year and last year, I did a full walkthrough of the property.

When I did the walkthrough, to me, the house was in average condition.

It does have

It does have a nicer kitchen.

I don't know that I knew when that was done or how old that kitchen renovation was done.

It does have a nicer kitchen.

No, that's not what I'm asking.

So the counties presented their assessment and now they want to change it based on knowledge that they already had.

It's our option.

Right, okay, that's cool.

That's your option.

That was totally pristine.

It does have some areas of deferred maintenance, you know,

I need some paint on the windows and some stuff outside.

I mean, it's not, to me, the house was an average condition for its age, even with the kitchen reminiscence.

Can you just, Mr. Lynch, can you just talk a little bit about why the assessed value went up so much from 2025 to 2026?

No, we actually weren't given any credit for the renovation.

Okay.

Well, due to the sales of the neighborhood.

Right.

So in that case, can we look at 440 Rookwood then?

Because that goes to my point.

440 Rookwood's in much better shape than our house.

And that's the only A minus one property that they've divided as comp.

And they even said was to look at this.

So I don't want to sort of derail things, but you've had an opportunity to present and we're trying to

As a board, try to figure out what to do here.

So if we have questions for you, we'll ask you.

But if you could just give us a little bit of time to talk amongst ourselves to figure out what to do, I think we'll get to a resolution a little bit quicker.

That's fine.

So I just want to confirm, so we're comfortable with the grade, and we're comfortable with the condition.

We've talked about the updating the basement from being a walkout.

And we've talked about the land and making the request to change is sort of adverse to the homeowner.

Great.

I think your summary is on track.

We have a motion and a second on application number 62433 Edmond Drive to change the assessment, lower it from

to $1,905,700.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thanks for the $100 back.

What's the total?

One nine oh five seven hundred.

And the land was... Make that a seven hundred and I think you got it.

No, no, that's 200 there.

Yep, you're right.

All right.

Calculated, right?

That's right.

Without a calculator, we'd all be in trouble.

5130 Mary Jackson Court, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson.

Hold on.

Everybody who's going to testify, we need to swear you in.

You swear that the information you're about to give is the truth.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so you'll have 10 minutes to present your case, and then the assessments office will have seven minutes, and then you'll have 10 minute rebuttal, but we're kind of informal, so we'll take as much time as we need.

I'd just like to say something preliminary, that I'm in an awkward position here, because as a matter of fairness, I have to acknowledge that your appraiser's methodology was clearly painstaking.

And I appreciate that.

And if we are challenging it to some degree, it's not because we don't recognize how much effort went into an analysis.

But you do think that, well, actually we know that, and I think you likely know that any valuation process can't

to be an exact science, that there are individuals that go into it.

And to the extent that there are figures that leap out to us that aren't cited in the appraisal, and certain facts that weren't made clear in the appraisal, we thought it would

I hope it would be helpful to us to add our perspective to the very granular analysis of one of the numbers that strikes me as on its face questionable is that our purchase price

which was $837,000 in 2024.

We know it to have been not the result of hard bargaining.

Indeed, we just accepted break builders.

The developers figure and took it from them.

Nor did we have any

Special reason to need to move then and there that might have prompted a higher price from us.

Or can we identify any reason that Craig's would have succumbed to an overly low purchase price offered by us?

So we do take $837,000 as an arm's length transaction that was truly arm's length and that fairly reflected the then fair market value

Give me, I'm also in an unenviable position.

This happens to be, three o'clock happens to be my usual nap time.

I should be ashamed to tell you that.

If I should be dividing this up or otherwise I'm unclear, please bear with me.

And I apologize to my husband for devoting something embarrassing.

Being from research, we see that again, this Avon Park area in 2025, there was a 3% to 5% appreciation in residential real.

And I know that because we had the honor of having our fair market value, I should say our purchase price,

initially assessed at 5.6% of our purchase price the year before, and then a whopping 18.6% further increase for 2025, despite again, Avon Park areas, three to five, that strikes me as questionable in itself.

A major point of difference with the appraisal is that it grades our property as a minus despite that our builder is recognized by Trudeau as a grade B builder

despite the fact that Fentus cited in the appraisal as making it special above and beyond.

He fleshed, I guess, were the features, clear story windows, transcendent windows, a cathedral ceiling, all of which

were standard features in the basic plan offered by our grade B builder.

Also, portraits are cited in the assessment.

And that term, especially in the plural, the blue stone used in what is referred to as portraits, the blue stone

is a grounding for a porch that is all of five feet wide and 10 feet long.

If it couldn't be smaller and indeed is smaller than many and perhaps most of the very, very similar projects in our development.

So it's a bit grandiose to refer to this fort at the basis

for upping the grade as one of the basics for upping the grade to A minus.

Let us know that we have the disadvantage of not having been able to

cite something that may or may not strike you as compelling, but it does seem to be somewhat material to us that our next door neighbor, whose property is of a plan that is the other builder in Galaxy Farm, the other builder has as one of his four plans, our neighbor's plan, which is

The version of our plan that Craig built is our neighbors encouraged by the some high prices achieved on sale of some of the properties in 2025.

A thirst by that still

apparently wanted to be modest in their approach and asked for $995,000 their asking price.

They recently put the property at a sale and already have been obliged to lower the asking price by 45,000 bonds.

Let me just stop it for a minute.

We can't consider anything that didn't happen in 2025.

That did not happen in 2025.

No, that's why he's saying in 2026.

It's just that if it seems to me there's a trajectory here,

and you could take a little notice of the fact that in 2026 there is some likelihood that a higher price would have been achieved and if in 2025 the question is if they can't sell it for $945,000 and it's very much akin to ours and indeed if we look at both properties and

I'm not asking you to take this off, I'm just noting that their house is so beautifully appointed and has a screened-in sunroom that is a lovely thing that we don't have.

They also have no basement.

They have primary bedroom on the first floor.

and again, they haven't been able to sell at a later date.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

We'll have some questions after this episode.

I see a question real quick.

It is the different builder, but numbers of the comparables also, both ours and the assessor's.

It was the builder.

They're not attached.

It's listed on one.

I know.

We will move that up.

Thank you.

OK.

So I just wanted to comment about a few of the comments that the applicant made.

We do list in our grade guide, I think you guys have a copy of, typical builders for each grade, but that doesn't mean they're only building that grade.

It's the grade that they built.

Some of your pictures of A are great.

Yes, yes.

So it's not, they're not restricted to that grade.

That's just, we found that somewhat, at one point at least, they typically run that grade.

Okay, we'll have to talk about that.

Okay, so, and this, we can, you know, you cannot use this, but I wanted to make this kind of an example of this because people tend to look at

Listings for Homes and say well that didn't sell or they had to lower it but the the house next door is listed for what was number nine hundred and fifty thousand we have it assessed for eight hundred seventy four so we don't expect it to sell for nine hundred fifty thousand

Anyway, but I believe it also is a lower grade.

So let's talk about grade.

A minus one is the grade on this house.

As they said, that's what Craig, that was the price.

And unless it's really unusual times, so like the builders are trying to move product, they're not gonna come off their prices.

So whatever you choose to put in your house.

And in this case, what we've seen is that what they chose to put in their house was

The plural.

quality.

So the sale price reflected what that house actually had in it.

And that was a year prior, and we had a reassessment since, and the sales that we have in the neighborhood indicated that the value should go higher.

We've used comparable number one on our list,

which is the same grade, same one and a half story, so it's very similar, sold for $1,029,770 in 2025 and it's assessed right within $1,300 of the subject.

We believe that that is a really good comparable, of course all the comparables

that we provide and the owner provides are all good comparables because based on their descriptions they are assessed at an appropriate number.

So the ratios are all good.

Basically these are all the sales from the neighborhood or most of the sales from the neighborhood that show that

when the model was working for these homes.

So when a property has a higher grade, it'll sell for more.

When it's lower grade, it'll sell for less.

So I think, is there anything you want to add about grade or anything?

I know we had this conversation.

I don't remember that it was tied to two-story versus one-and-a-half story.

Oh, because you'll remember I talked about how two-story necessarily can't have vaulted ceilings.

I would be curious.

There's a lot of B plus ones, which is just one grade down from an A minus.

Yes, that was my question.

So I inspected this property and I also just want to put on record that the Bendersons were

I'll talk a little bit louder.

The Harrisons were very gracious and generous in allowing me to see inside their property and see everything that I needed to.

So I really appreciated them in that process.

The items that I noted, this is the Chesapeake model.

No, the neighborhood is comprised

Primarily of Greenwood and Craig-built homes in the Galaxy Farm section, there are multiple models that Craig produces within that division.

The Chesapeake-Timon College is one of the ones that has that cathedral volume ceiling.

I believe I measured that at 16 feet high.

It has additional player story windows.

It does have that stonework on the porch.

I believe it to be bluestone.

Do you have transom windows?

This property did feature tray ceilings.

Yes, I believe some of them are featured on A minus one.

and also support for the grade in the sale price and the, in the year that it's, that they purchased the property, they paid 836, 969.

We assessed it at 883 with that grade.

So, you know, it worked in the year it sold.

And then for another year later when we have appreciation in the market and,

You know, so we feel that the, we didn't change the grade since last year.

Any other questions from the assessor?

Before, and I don't mean to bore you all.

Craig,

Each of the two builders that sold homes in Galaxy One offer four models a piece.

Ours, which has to be, has, is again, it's the base model.

And then we were given an opportunity to upgrade.

We,

Our upgrades were very modest.

Indeed, we shrunk from even putting in ground molding.

We were budget conscious.

And so the notion that our features are exceptional for the base model, the Chesapeake base model, strikes me as not supportable.

The cathedral ceiling,

amongst other things represented to us.

It was aesthetically pleasing indeed that had an effect on our being interested.

But this is a very modest sized house.

It has no basement.

It has no extra non-living space.

It's got the basic middle-class features of three bedrooms, two and a half baths.

dimensions are modest.

So losing usable space, which is a fact when you have a cathedral ceiling, wouldn't have struck me as a reason for buying the property or for accepting a higher sales price that we would have to pay.

The clear story

Again, clear story.

And I think there may be one transit.

I believe there is a transit window over the office.

But these houses, and there are 60 something, I think there are 65 between the two buildings.

There are 65, one family, separate houses, detached houses in our development.

And it's a very social community.

And we've been to lots of,

inside lots of the houses and the standard cabinets, cabinetry, the materials, the workmanship are from our view as people who have been looking at lots of houses in the 800,000

were high 700s and low 800,000.

This was in 24.

There was nothing special to our eye.

That doesn't necessarily have to move you, but I am telling you honestly that it surprised me and didn't delight me that we were being appraised at figures that I thought were not entirely warranted.

And again,

The assessment for 25 accepted our purchase price as a base for valuation, raised that value, the purchase price by 5.6%, but then proposes that in 2025

Our property went up in value by 18.6%.

That's a whopping rate, even though I'm appreciative of the fact that the market, I've kept up with research, and this is a notable, notably unaligned with increases in value.

I can't speak to the other comparable, how, what kind of person of,

The idiosyncratic factors went into there.

But I know this was not a hard negotiation, and it was informed by our own familiarity with other offerings.

I have one piece of information.

I just grabbed it.

No, it wasn't last week, it was April 22nd, so long ago, it's hard to remember.

from $1047,900, which is virtually identical to the property we're looking at has a $1048,000.

We dropped it all the way to $968,000.

But I suspect it was the grade, yeah.

It's the one that prompted a lot of discussion.

Correct.

My biggest issue was, and I'll just restate it, I think, that when you have a story and a half,

and that additional value, I think, should already be taken into account in the benefits of the market pace.

I feel like the grading standards should be more about finishes and appliances and boring than whether there's a vaulted ceiling or not.

And I mean, this is what we,

I'm of the same mind as the first one.

I think the grading on this does need to be adjusted to conform with what I think the rest of the neighborhoods are.

I understand the two-story units.

I mean the two stories

Layout, empty box, Tom Powell.

I'm saying, yes, I'm saying that we compound this particular case.

And I think from a consistency standpoint, I am inclined to adjust their grade accordingly, just like we did.

Is the address again?

Yeah, 5012 Mary Jackson Court.

If this was adjusted to B plus one, what would the assessment be?

Peter?

Oh, I'm sorry.

While he's doing that, I have a question for you, Beth.

What are the four models that Craig builds?

That neighborhood, there's Chesapeake,

Two-story.

And then you also have the Meachum or Meachum Heritage, which I also believe is a two-story.

That's three.

There is.

There is.

But it does suggest the only story and I am?

I still believe so.

Okay.

We're really talking about a grading issue.

The finishes inside of the two-story buildings that Craig builds are typically all the same.

I mean, you can make choices.

We don't.

Carpeted upstairs, but carpet is not a high grade.

It was the lowest grade, standard grade.

And our appliances, by the way.

We've been in other Chesapeake homes in the development.

Yeah, I think we're,

I'm on board.

As a B+, it'll be 89400.

Say it again.

890,400.

But if I remember correctly on the property that Mr. Naughton brought up, we didn't change it to a B+, we actually had it halfway in between an A- and a B+.

I was just going to say my notes say on that 5012.

Right, right, 968, right.

I'd make the motion that, can you give me the improvement numbers so I can say all three numbers at once?

69.

Improvement 781,300.

Okay, Lance the same.

Yes, at 188.1.

So I'd like to make a motion that we reduce the overall assessment for application 24 address 5130 Mary Jackson Court.

We hold the land at $188,100.

The improvements get adjusted to $781,300 for a total of $969,400.

We have a second?

Sorry, we have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

It's not usual.

Usually silent.

Are there any other matters that come before the board today other than our next meeting is Monday at one o'clock?

That is correct.

So it's not until 1.30?

Thank you ladies.

Don't have a nice balance with the day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

1.30, this Sunday, 1.30.