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Tax bills have some fuming

By Meg Olson

When many Point Roberts property owners balked at their 2006 property tax assessments – which almost doubled for the community as a whole following a quadrennial revaluation – county assessor Keith Wilnauer was adamant that didn’t mean taxes would double in 2007.

Tax bills were issued by the county treasurer’s office in February, and in some cases that’s just what they did. But other property owners saw a welcome drop in taxes.

An informal review of the tax records for a selection of properties on the Point suggests a pattern: the winners, who will pay lower taxes in 2007, were commercial properties and mobile homes; in the middle the higher end homes away from the water will see a modest increase; modest homes and waterfront properties… look out.

Taxes on a smaller home on prime Edwards Drive waterfront increased 94 percent. According to 2006 property assessments one property had increased in value from $215,000 in 2003 to over half a million. An affordable single family home in central Point Roberts also saw over 150 percent increase in valuation in the last round of assessment, and will owe 86 percent more in taxes in 2007 than in 2006. Summer homes in the Maple Beach were some of the hardest hit and are looking at a 98 percent tax hike this year.

“We got an increase of 77 percent,” said Fred DeHaan, whose family owns 20 acres along the southern bluff that was homesteaded by his wife Pauline’s family in 1896. The land, two family homes and cabins along the beach will cost the DeHaans an additional $12,000 per year in taxes. “We’ll have to raise our rents but I don’t know if some of these people will be able to afford it for summer homes,” he said.

The flip side is that some properties will pay less taxes in 2007 than they did in 2006, while some will barely see them change. A three-bedroom home on Uscandia Lane will see an eight percent increase in their property taxes. Owners of a mobile home on a rented pad in Sunny Point park saw a welcome 46 percent drop in the taxes they owe for 2007.

Along Tyee Drive almost all the developed commercial properties will see a decrease in their taxes: in the last valuation the assessed value of the land on which the parcel service, the liquor store, the water district office, the supermarket and Point Roberts Realty sit did not increase in value. With only slight increases in value due to improvements, those property owners will pay ten to 25 percent less in taxes in 2007.

“People buy commercial properties for their income stream,” Wilnauer said of the contrast between rising values for homes and stagnant ones for commercial property. “It’s an entirely different market.”

Owners of undeveloped land also saw their taxes go up – or down. One owner will be paying 34 percent more in taxes on his 20 acres on Benson Road, but will pay 38 percent less on the 40 acres he owns on APA Road.

“There are a lot of influences to value on the Point,” Wilnauer said: the water moratorium, archaeological issues, zoning, availability of utilities and site access, location. “There’s a lot of regulatory activity going on in Point Roberts that drive market value in one direction or another.” He said there appeared to be more of a market for smaller lots that would be buildable once they got a water connection, as compared to larger parcels facing more regulatory issues.

Wilnauer said that his office, under state law, was required to assign fair market value to every property. “We’re expected to put ourselves in the shoes of knowledgeable buyers and sellers,” he said.

The treasurers office then takes the dollar amount assigned to any group of taxpayers – a school district, the county, the local hospital district – and splits up the taxes requested by those agencies between the dollars in property value.

In Point Roberts taxes will be spread among $502 million worth of property this year, compared with the $264 million in property value dollars that shouldered the burden for last year’s taxes. The result is that the number of tax dollars charged a property owner for every thousand dollars worth of property owned, the mill rate, went down in Point Roberts in 2007: from 12.17 to 9.06.

Overall $4.5 million in property tax dollars will come from Point Roberts this year, compared to $3.2 million last year – a 40 percent increase. Wilnauer explained that wasn’t because taxes went up 40 percent but because with the revaluation local taxpayers were taking more of the county and state tax burden from areas like Bellingham that saw large increases after being revalued last year and the year before.
“Your relationship to other properties gets recalibrated and somebody else is happy you’re on board,” he said. Next year, when the eastern portion of the county is revalued, some of the tax burden is expected to shift in that direction which could lead to some relief for Point Roberts taxpayers.

Even locally, as some properties saw little change in value, their share of taxes for the parks, fire and hospital districts went down, moved over to properties which saw a big boost in value. “For people whose properties change their relationship to market value in an above average way there is a shifting of burden that moves over to you,” Wilnauer explained.

Locally the fire department took a one percent increase in its levy amount, and the mill rate went from 81 cents to 45 cents. The hospital district asked for a lower levy than last year and their mill rate dropped from 67 to 33 cents. The parks district is collecting the same $35,000 in taxes it did last year, and its mill rate dropped from 13 to 6.9 cents.

Property owners who think their share of taxes is too high due to an unfair valuation can appeal to the county board of equalization. For taxpayers who would like to appeal their property valuation the deadline has passed for 2007, but Wilnauer said every property owner can appeal their valuation for the following year before July 1. He added that factual errors, such as a mistake in square footage, could still be corrected.

As the All Point Bulletin goes to press, Wilnauer is holding an open house for taxpayers with sticker shock in Bellingham to try and explain how they parcel out the tax burden, and he encourages those who could not attend but still have questions to call his office. “When we get people’s attention we’d like to get it straight,” he said. ”During this time frame that’s our number one priority.”