Judges uphold 25% reduction in assessments
Owner of pair of apartment complexes claimed city used bad information to set values
TROY, N.Y. » The city, Rensselaer County and the Troy City School District may be forced to refund hundreds of thousands of dollars to the owner of two apartment complexes after a state appellate court denied the city’s appeal of a lower court ruling that cut the assessments of both properties by about 25 percent.
In a ruling released Thursday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court upheld the May 2016 decision of acting state Supreme Court Judge Henry Zwack against the city’s Board of Assessment Review that led to the reduction of the combined assessments of the Troy Gardens and Park Ridge complexes from just over $19 million to about $13.8 million. The appellate panel said in its ruling that Zwack properly chose to accept expert appraisals provided by Center Albany Associates, owner of the complexes, that argued the $8 million assessment recorded in 2013 for Troy Gardens was about $2 million than its actual value and the $11.1 million assessed value for Park Ridge was overstated by $3 million.
“Considering the record as a whole, we find no error in Supreme Court’s credibility determinations according no weight to [the city’s appraisal] and adopting the valuations set forth by [Center Albany Associates},” the decision states.
John Salka, spokesman for Mayor Patrick Madden, said Friday officials are weighing the city’s options before deciding whether to appeal the decision to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. He also said officials had yet to make a determination of how much the city, as well as the Troy City School District and Rensselaer County,
would have to refund for the four years of taxes paid based on the higher assessment.
Based solely on property tax rates for the four years in question, however, the city would be looking at returning a total of about $250,000 and, based solely on the current property tax rate, see the loss of at least $70,000 a year in future tax revenue. Using similar information, the Troy City School District would face the repayment of more than $425,000 in tax revenue and the future loss of
at least $110,000 in revenue, while Rensselaer County would have to refund about $140,000 and see the loss of at least $35,000 per year in future tax revenue.
Troy Gardens is located just off Hoosick Street on 21st Street, behind the Hilton Garden Inn, and features 191 apartments built in the 1950s, according to court documents. Park Ridge, meanwhile, is about a halfmile northwest of Troy Gardens, on 25th Street, and includes 257 units built in two phases in the 1960s and ’70s. While both sides agreed the properties are well run and maintained, each used different criteria for judging the value of the complexes and Zwack ruled the city inappropriately inflated expected rental income and understated vacancy rates and operating expenses.
“It is undisputed that [Center Albany Associates] met its initial burden to rebut the presumptive validity of the values placed on the properties by respondent Assessor of the City of Troy by ‘demonstrat(ing) the existance of a valid and credible dispute regarding valuation,’” the decision read, citing the decision in a 1998 case involving an assessment dispute in the western New York town of Tonawanda.
The appellate decision upholds the reduction by Zwack of Troy Gardens’ assessment from $7.975 million to $5.8 million and Park Ridge’s assessed value from $11.1 million to $8.1 million.