Judge sides with town in TechCity assessment battle

A state judge has agreed with town officials that 95.5 undeveloped acres surrounding TechCity east campus buildings owned by AG Properties should no longer be assessed as having no value for the purpose of property taxation.

The decision from state Supreme Court Justice Richard Mott, issued March 14, supports the town’s ability to assess the property, but without affirming the $4.78 million value the town placed on the property for the 2017 tax rolls.

A separate court case will be heard to challenge the assessment.

“AG Properties has failed to meet its initial burden of establishing that the subject parcel has no other value for its owner than as a servient estate where it has not submitted any proof that the servient estate cannot co-exist with other uses or independently benefit its owner,” he wrote.

There had been a zero value assessment on the property since 1996.

Town Supervisor James Quigley noted that the property had been a single parcel until 1996, when it was subdivided into 27 parcels so each building was considered a separate property and surrounded by a parcel that had only roads, parking areas and lawn.

“Because of the subdivision and zero lot lines on the buildings, all the parking lots were valued at zero because the value was recognized in the buildings themselves,” he said.

Town officials reassessed the site after Alan Ginsberg, who purchased the property from IBM in 1998 for $3.1 million, demolished seven buildings in 2016.

“Once he tore (some of) the buildings down there’s no need for the parking lots,” Quigley said. “And, once I demonstrated that he was trying to sell the parking lots as developable land, he took and removed the attributes of common area from it.”

Town officials reported that, with the assessment change, TechCity would be required to pay $90,416.70 in town and county taxes and an additional $180,294.54 in school district taxes for 2017-18.

TechCity attorney Allan Hyman said the court case seeking to have the $4.78 million assessment reduced will be based on the vacant land being a common area for the buildings.

“We’ve taken the position it’s worth nothing because it’s been assessed for the past 20 years or so at zero dollars since the value of that land is reflected in the assessments for all of the various buildings,” he said. “All of a sudden, the assessor last year, for the 2017 year, increased the assessment to over $4 million for that property, which was grossly improper.”

Quigley said information could not be found on how former property owner IBM persuaded town officials to subdivide the property so such a large section was not given an assessed value.

“I’ve tried to go back through the recorded documents to find documents as to how we got to where we got,” he said. “They aren’t there . ... I couldn’t find the backup documentation for a lot of decisions that were made. If you read the minutes for the (town) Planning Board, they just say, ‘We made this decision.’ They don’t tell you why or how they got there.”