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| May 05, 2024 |
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General News: Unpaid Taxes Tied to Assessment on Mill St.
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| The 2 Mill Street property on 69 acres had its assessment lowered before the fire that destroyed many of the buildings. |
January 26, 2012
By Nancy Peckenham
The fire at 2 Mill Street ten days ago brought public attention to the complex of warehouses, studios and processing facilities that occupied a warren of buildings at the site of the old Firth Carpet Mill.
It was first reported here that the owner of the property had not paid more than $600,000 in property taxes to the town and county and further investigation reveals a more full picture of what led to a total of $654,297 in unpaid property taxes between 2008 and 2011 and $560,229 in unpaid school taxes. The owners did pay $64,178 in property taxes and and $209,000 in school taxes for one parcel during the same period.
Assessment Challenges Lead to Lower Assessments & Taxes
The 2 Mill Street property is actually divided into three units, each owned by a different company tied to Isaac Landau and Millpond Equities. These companies, Cornwall Warehousing, Moodna Creek Development, Ltd., and SRII, Ltd., successfully challenged the town of Cornwall’s assessments of the property, which were slashed by 86 percent late last year. In a settlement approved by the town board in October 2011, the assessments were reduced from a total of $4,760,900 to $600,000, a total drop in value of $4.16 million.
These property owners were not the only ones to win reductions to their assessed values. For example, in June of 2011 the town board approved settlements with five property owners that reduced assessments by $2.6 million (see article). Many of the property owners who fought and won reductions, , including those at 2 Mill Street, argued that the increases resulted from spot assessments that a judge ruled violate the constitution.
School and Town Budget Impacted by Assessment Reductions
At the Cornwall Central School District, school board member Melanie Mulroy-Robinson complained in November about the negative impact the tax reductions have on the school budget. School assistant superintendent for business Harvey Sotland said this week that more than a million dollars had to be refunded to various property owners in the current budget alone. He expects more will be refunded to the county for the 2 Mill Street properties because the county had given the money to the district in 2008-2010 with the expectation that it would collect the money from the property owner. “It impacts the taxpayers and it impacts the school district,” Sotland said.
Town supervisor Kevin Quigley agreed that the lower assessments at 2 Mill Street are “a burden” and he questions how a property on 69 acres with 400,000 square feet of property could be assessed so low. However, he followed the advice of legal counsel in approving the deal. “I am sure they made a convincing argument,” he said of the Mill Street owners.
Comments:
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Nice.
So the tax assessment gets lowered radically just in time for the place to burn down. Perfect opportunity to flip it to a builder.
This stinks to high heavens. Someone needs to find out who this guy is playing golf with.
posted by Ted Warren on 01/26/12 at 5:06 PM
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I share the same questions as Supervisor Quigley on how the assessment could have been $4M off. Also, is it known how much property and school tax these companies tied to Landau now owe, after the assessment reduction?
posted by Dan Poindexter on 01/26/12 at 5:12 PM
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?I am sure they made a convincing argument,? I hope there is more substance to the thought process than that! How does the Town Supervisor and the Board justify their meek acceptance of this audacious write-off?
posted by Michael Summerfield on 01/26/12 at 5:51 PM
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Is the no such thing as an appeal to something like that? Today the Cornwall Local front page outlines the shortcomings in our school budget by 1.4 million dollars. Cutting back on teachers and funds that are promised by law to our town that we all pay so that our children can get a quality education not to mention all of the other services funded by the tax payers of this town. This impacts everyone here and right from the top on down this is failure to protect the rights of every resident.
posted by Chris Walklet on 01/26/12 at 10:45 PM
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