Homeowner wins open meetings ruling

Judge rules against city Assessment Board of Review in resident’s lawsuit claiming unfair tax treatment

WOONSOCKET — The city’s Assessment Board of Review violated the Open Meetings Act when it decided – erroneously – to uphold the tax assessor’s decision to revoke the single-family homestead exemption on Christopher Roberts’ property, a Superior Court judge has decided.

In a ruling released Friday, Judge Bennett Gallo concluded that Roberts’ property, located at 507 Rhodes Ave., was improperly reclassified as a two-family residence by Tax Assessor Elyse Pare in 2015, invalidating a decision made by her predecessor to grant Roberts the more generous single-family exemption.

A former member of the School Committee, Roberts went to the Assessment Board of Review to appeal the switch last year in a dispute that garnered significant publicity, partly because Roberts had also appeared before the City Council on multiple occasions to plead for relief. The assessment board held a hearing in March 2017, but Gallo said he couldn’t find any evidence the panel either advertised or kept a record of a subsequent meeting in which a decision was apparently rendered to affirm Pare’s ruling – a ruling the court also said was inconsistent with the city’s tax code.

“Assuming, as the tax assessor speculated at trial, that a meeting occurred in April 2017 at which the plaintiffs’ appeal was decided, the court can only conclude from the facts presented at trial that the April 2017 meeting was a non-pub- lic meeting and no minutes kept of that meeting, all in violation of the OMA,” the court concluded in a 13-page ruling. “Accordingly, this court finds for plaintiffs in their OMA violation claim.”

The court said the city must pay Roberts’ legal fees on the OMA claim, but that it shouldn’t be subject to a civil fine because there is insufficient evidence that the offense was “knowing and willful.” Claims that bear evidence of such volition are subject to civil fines up to $5,000 under state law.

Roberts lives on a parcel of some 1.8 acres at 507 Rhodes Ave. that includes the main house where he resides with his family and an accessory dwelling, where his grandparents reside. The property used to be a farm, and the detached accessory dwelling used to be a barn.

Prior to Pare’s hiring, former Tax Assessor Christopher Celeste, the judge’s ruling says, advised Roberts that he would qualify for the city’s single-family homestead

exemption for the entire parcel – the land and both buildings – provided he obtained a ruling from the Zoning Board of Review declaring his grandparents’ house an accessory dwelling. He did so and Celeste applied the single-family exemption to the property.

After Pare’s arrival, she re-

viewed the situation and decided that Celeste had erred. She reclassified the parcel as a two-family property – a designation that currently qualifies for an exemption of just 10 percent – a third of the single-family exemption at the time.

As a result, the taxes on the property rose from $8,059 to $9,855, according to previously published reports.

In his decision on the taxes,

Gallo’s ruling gives neither the city nor Roberts exactly what they were looking for, though it appears to more heavily favor the plaintiff.

After reviewing the city’s homestead exemption laws, Gallo concluded that Roberts’ property is clearly not a multifamily house. He decided that it is a single-family house with an accessory dwelling on it.

He ruled that the the main house

and all of the land qualify for the single-family homestead exemption, but the accessory dwelling qualifies for no exemption. The ruling apparently means the city is empowered to tax the accessory dwelling at full value, with no writeoff.

At the time the case was argued, the assessed value of the 600-square-foot accessory residence was $27,200 – or about 17 percent of the total value of the

parcel, which was $161,100. Property values have since changed, however. The city currently pegs the worth of the total parcel at $292,300, according to the assessor’s online database.

Exemptions have also changed since the lawsuit was filed. The city now allows a 25-percent writeoff of the value of owner-occupied, single-family homes. Two-families are still allowed a 10-percent exemption, however.