Reassessment, change order up for approval
LANSDALE >> An updated assessment of one of Lansdale’s most visible properties could lead to an unplanned expense for Lansdale.
Finance Director John Ramey reported last week that a reassessment agreement has been reached with the owners of the Century Plaza office building at 100 W. Main St., meaning the borough will have to pay them back.
“We’ll end up doing a refund for their 2017 and 2018 taxes, with a total amount of $9,136. And going forward starting with 2019, it’ll be about
$5,900 a year that we would be losing,” Ramey said.
Ramey told council’s administration and finance committee that the Century Plaza owners had a new assessment of their property’s value done, which showed a roughly $4 million reduction from the prior assessment, to roughly $3.1 million.
Ramey and Borough Manager John Ernst said the reassessment agreement had also been vetted by Montgomery County and the North Penn School District, both of which typically receive more in local taxes than the borough.
“If we don’t approve (the reassessment), we stand alone in a court room trying to fight it,” councilman Leon Angelichio said.
“Over $5,900,” Ramey replied.
The administration and finance committee voted unanimously to approve the reassessment agreement, and recommended that full council do the same when they meet on April 24.
“It doesn’t seem like a high-value proposition to fight this, to me,” said councilman Denton Burnell.
Change order coming: The committee also voted and recommended a change order for roughly $89,000 with contractor The Tulio Group over work on the borough-owned building at 421 W. Main Street.
“It means, we’re getting out of our contract, and he’s walking away from the project, and he’s getting paid for $89,000,” said Ernst.
The 421 building was the former home of the borough’s offices and more recently a district court, and is currently fully occupied by Montgomery County offices. According to Ernst and borough Manager of Code Enforcement and Community Development Chris Kunkel, the borough had awarded Tulio a contract for various repairs to the building, which led to a disagreement.
“The dispute was primarily over, there were some extras that he felt were involved, that were not approved change orders. That’s where the dispute came in,” Kunkel said.
“Some of those were legitimate costs, and we were able to, finally, after a lot of back and forth, get to the bottom of that, with an amount we felt were justifiable change orders,” he said, adding that the agreement adds roughly $10,000 to the total project cost.
Whites Road playground equipment could be reexamined: Staff also reported during the April 3 committee meetings that a project to improve the accessibility features at Whites Road Park may be delayed or revamped.
“One of the issues we’re running into is, in order to make Whites Road Park accessible, the size of the ramp, because you’d have to make it accessible com
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