Along with the developers’ best friend on city council, Andy Dulin. Pat McCrory’s letter to the Mecklenburg County Commission asking for a delay in the reval:
Given the current downturn in the local housing market and the rise in foreclosures, I do not believe we can accurately appraise housing values during this time and I firmly believe we should not lock homeowners into a valuation rate for potentially eight years, particularly for those on fixed incomes and those who have faced recent job losses. … Going forward with revaluation will only add anxiety to our families facing financial uncertainty and further hinder our real estate sector. … It will be a challenge for many businesses to face an increase in the tax burden and a decrease in revenue at the same time. … Our focus should be on business growth and job creation, not potential higher taxation.
None of this makes any sense. If local officials do not want higher taxation they can vote to cut the damn property tax rate. If there is a problem with a valuation process spitting out phantom values, presumably the appeals process can fix it. If not, we need to fix the appeals process not delay the reval. And whenever we do do a reval, those on “fixed incomes” will see a higher property tax bill — assuming the rate stays unchanged.
Instead of facing the end of boom times squarely and honestly — a reality we talked about in this space for over a year now — local government officials are instead trying to temporize, pretending that no-money-down, no-doc mortgages will come back and re-inflate the real estate bubble, if we only wait a little longer. If we only believe.
Time to grow up.
