Some Suffolk assessments to get a second look

SUFFOLK

Hundreds of people could get a surprise notice this summer that their real estate assessments have changed - even if they never filed an appeal.

The assessor's office has decided to review all of the roughly 1,100 waterfront properties after hearing from the city's Board of Equalization.

The board heard the last assessment appeal this week. Interim Assessor Sid Daughtrey said he hopes to complete the reviews by mid-July.

John Harry, chairman of the three-member appeals board, said the group concluded that too broad a brush was used to determine values.

The waterfront review continues a tumultuous assessment season in Suffolk. The City Council fired Assessor Maria Kattmann in May after listening to a series of complaints about assessments.

Residential assessments rose 4.4 percent overall in the city, and more than a quarter of all the city's subdivisions saw an overall decrease. Other homeowners, however, saw increases of 100 percent or more.

The complaints led to an avalanche of appeals to the Board of Equalization. Harry didn't keep count, but he estimated that the board heard 400 cases in person. The board also reviewed at least 100 appeals without a hearing, he said.

Those numbers far outpaced nearby cities this spring. In Chesapeake, three appeals went to the Board of Equalization. In Portsmouth, 51 did.

"This has been by far the most appeals we've had during my time with the city," said Daughtrey, who is going on his 24th year in the Suffolk office.

This past year, the assessor's office began valuing waterfront homes using strict pricing schedules. Depending on the body of water, a home's land value was calculated with a price-per-acre schedule for creeks, rivers or lakes.

Kattmann told the City Council she used the schedules to better capture the value of waterfront properties.

After she was fired, Kattmann sued the city. She claimed in part that she was dismissed in retaliation for the complaints by real estate owners over their assessments.

The Board of Equalization agreed with homeowners that the waterfront schedules didn't do enough to account for differences in shoreline. For example, the owner of a creekfront property might complain that his waterfront becomes a mudflat at low tide, yet it was still priced the same as a home on more navigable water.

The assessors in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake said their offices do not use uniform schedules for waterfront assessments. Instead they determine values with a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach, with consideration for deep water as well as mudflats.

Portsmouth classifies homes as waterfront (deep water), lakefront, and tidal marsh, Assessor Alethia Bryce said.

A couple of neighborhoods away from the water may also see adjusted assessments, but those will be few and far between, Daughtrey said.

There are about 1,100 waterfront parcels out of about 38,000 parcels in Suffolk, Daughtrey said.

Residents may begin to receive notices next month if their assessments changed, he said.

Pamela Goforth is hoping to see a dramatic decrease for her 1965 brick ranch home in Bennetts Harbor.

She challenged the assessment when it jumped from $405,000 to $493,000.

Goforth said she has been trying to sell it for about a year and a half, and she's even willing to go below $330,000.

Goforth hasn't seen an official notice yet, but an appraiser told her the assessment could be adjusted to as low as $378,000. That would amount to a $1,000 drop in taxes from the original assessment.

"That's what I'm hoping," Goforth said.

Staff writer Jen McCaffery contributed to this report.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com