Tax deal will doom Kingston financially

Dear Editor: Re “Company that plans to buy two Kingston senior apartment buildings may seek payment-in-lieu of taxes agreement,” Nov. 20, 2017: It made me regurgitate.

The proposed purchasers of Yosman Tower and the Gov. Clinton Apartments now want a 35-year tax deal. What’s worse, our own city assessor is helping them put the proposal together.

They claim they want to make improvements to the properties. Well, here is a bit of advice: If the present owners have left the properties depreciated to a point where they need upgrading, and you need a tax deal to do it, you are paying too much.

Why should the present owners, in essence, make an excessive profit because they failed to make capital improvements along the way, and now we, the taxpayers, have to subsidize the new owners? The appraisals are too high based on the conditions of the properties, and expected income produced. The bank or creditors should not approve the loan.

Or, perhaps, is it less than an arms-length deal?

Unfortunately the elections have passed, and the people have indicated — by, at best, an 8-1 margin of Democrats to Republicans on the city’s Common Council — that this type of government financial intervention is what they support. Either that, or they simply do not understand what is happening. They criticize the wealthy, yet, in this case, the wealthy get wealthier.

My cynical mind says the city administration wants to get property values up, whether the owners pay taxes or not, because then they can claim they have kept the tax rate constant.

I know not what the hour, nor the day, but trust me, the tsunami is coming. The tide of financial debt, the weight of the tax deals’ debt load being so heavy, we will not be able to avert Kingston’s impending financial doom.

Bruce McLean, Kingston

Editor’s note: The writer is a former Kingston GOP Committee chairman and a former member of the city Planning Board.