Mar. 12—It cost $400,000 for GAR Associates of Williamsville to revalue the City of Lockport's tax assessment roll. The revaluation, has found plenty of pushback from taxpayers who have received letters updating the value of their home's new assessment which sometimes approaches a number three times what it was a year ago.
A point of contention was the use of sales data from 2020 to 2021, when houses within the city began selling well above their asking prices. After the sale, the reval stamped the new price as the new assessment for the acquired property and also seemed to affect the assessments of comparable homes. 3rd Ward Alderman Mark Devine said that his ward and the 1st Ward were being hit the hardest. Devine said young families were paying $90,000 for homes assessed at $40,000. Those sale prices impact assessments for similar homes in the city.
GAR Associates Partner Cindy Baire said in a phone interview that regardless of the new asking price, her company was reporting "just the facts" when it came to the valuation of properties in Lockport. There was no formula, she said, to account for a "housing bubble."
"Here's the problem. The facts are the facts. We just report the facts. We can't predict. We can't ignore those transactions," Baire said. "In the past, occasionally, there would be a bidding war and we would look at those sales and say, 'That's not normal. That's not typical,' but this has been typical for the last two years. So, it is the market."
Rising assessments, as well as the individual estimated tax burden, brought residents to the Common Council meeting Wednesday.
Lockport resident Scott Cercone came to the meeting to express dismay.
"I got my letter in the mail Friday, and I told my wife — even before I opened the letter — 'We've been under-assessed for a while now. We're going to go up $20,000 or $30,000,' " Cercone said. "I figured something like $55K and $70K ... That's no problem. That's going to happen. Then I got it. It was $130,000! We went up $89,000!"
Cercone went on to say that'd he'd like to invite the whole council over to his home for a beer to show them exactly what was worth that amount.
"My square footage is 1,083," he said. "It's two bedroom — we do have a third room, about a closet, that we use as a bedroom — but the house is listed as two bedroom. It has an earth basement. Rock and dirt where my hot water tank and my furnace is."