Tax assessor mails notices By MARK McDONALD [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) 215-854-2646 The city's tax assessor yesterday began mailing 413,000 property-assessment notices that could increase the city's multibillion-dollar real-estate tax base by 8 percent. For residential-property owners, the average assessment increase for 2008 will raise tax bills by an average of $77 a year, according to a spokesman for the Board of Revision of Taxes. About 60 percent of the estimated $46 million in new property- tax revenue would go to the beleaguered city school system, while the rest would flow into the city's general fund. The volume of assessment changes is the largest since 2002, when more than 270,000 notices were sent out. That volume and the size of the tax payments touched off a spate of taxpayer challenges and failed attempts by City Council to freeze assessments. In the last two years, assessment increases have been limited to about 40,000 properties a year as the revision board developed a controversial "full value" assessment system, which it has yet to implement. The board is now under the chairmanship of Charlesretta Meade, a veteran board member who replaced retiring David Glancey last spring. Meade was not available for questions yesterday. That job was turned over to a public-relations firm. The assessment notices have no connection to the board's ongoing work toward establishing the "full value" method of assessing the city's 576,000 properties, based on a real market values and not the current fractional system, board spokesman Pete Peterson said. "The status of full value is one where the board is looking to implement possibly in the future," he said. Industrial properties will see an average tax increase of $1,251, and commercial properties with residences above them will see an average $481 tax hike. Other commercial properties will see an average increase of $1,706, Peterson said. A revision board news release said assessments on 6 percent of properties will decrease. Also, one third of properties will have a tax hit of $50 or less, and 86 percent of properties will have increases of less than $200, it said. In the residential area, Peterson said, "The locations that will be most impacted will be Chestnut Hill and Center City areas." About 1,841 residential-property owners will face tax increases of $1,000 or more, he said. Councilman Frank DiCicco, who represents part of Center City, said he'd been informed that the revision board had as a matter of policy decided to limit residential-assessment increases to between 7 percent and 7.5 percent. Councilman Frank Rizzo, who lives in Chestnut Hill, said he will help city residents appeal their increases to the Board of View. As for the assessment hit in tony Chestnut Hill, Rizzo said, "There certainly was an appreciation of property [values], but now I think we're starting to see a change in the values. They're getting softer." If the proposed assessments were developed months ago, Rizzo suggested, the board may have to start over, given the recent downturn in the real-estate market.
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