Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
General Motors continues to be the biggest contributor to Allen County tax rolls, but new methods in calculating the value of property have added a few new entities to the county’s list of top taxpayers.
The top property taxpayers in the county contributed 7.9 percent of the $348 million in property taxes that will be collected this year, said Renata Renninger, property tax administrator with the Allen County Auditor’s office.
They are GM, three utilities, two hospitals and several commercial developments. But a few properties moved into the top 10 this year. The change, in part, is because of trending – the updating of property values each year based on the sale of similar properties.
Edward Rose Development, which owns several apartment complexes in the county, was eighth on the list with a property tax bill of $1.4 million. An increase in those properties’ assessed value was because of trending, Auditor Lisa Blosser said.
One of those complexes, West Wind, is in Washington Township. The assessor there, Jackie Mahlock, said that after her office updated the value of those properties, the assessed property value increased almost $5 million. No improvements have been made to the complex since 2002, Mahlock said.
That assessment is currently under appeal because Edward Rose would like the township to consider its income earned by the property instead of the cost to build or replace the buildings. Changing the method used to value the property could reduce its worth, she said.
Another Edward Rose apartment complex, in St. Joseph Township, called Dupont Lakes, is also under appeal for the same reason, Township Assessor Tim Nagel said.
A spokesman for the company, based in Kalamazoo, Mich., declined to comment.
Edward Rose has been one of the larger property tax contributors in recent years, but the loss of several others from the top 10 list, including some utilities, plus the effect of trending pushed Edward Rose higher, Renninger said.
Trending property values was implemented this year. Before this year’s update, Indiana values were based on a 1999 reassessment. Trending was also a key factor in increasing home owners’ property tax bills this year – an average 24 percent increase statewide. Those higher tax bills averaged 15 percent for Allen County homeowners, although homeowners in Aboite Township saw an average increase of 57 percent because they are now paying Fort Wayne taxes. Properties of all types increased in value about 12 percent countywide.
Jefferson Pointe is another commercial property that joins the top 10 property taxpayers this year, again because of trending, Blosser said.
The recent sales of Jefferson Pointe and Glenbrook Square provided local assessors with enough information to more accurately value those properties. In the past, the value for Jefferson Pointe was based on the cost to build the outdoor mall because of a lack of income information or sales data, O’Day said.
Adjusting those properties based on sales information, which is essentially what trending does, bumped up the value of Jefferson Pointe to $80.9 million with a 2007 tax bill of $2.1 million.
Some of those dollars will be collected in a special taxing district that stretches into downtown Fort Wayne and will be used to finance the construction of the Harrison Square development.
But some of those tax dollars will continue to support basic government services, Blosser said.
Special taxing districts at Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Manufacturing in Woodburn and the Allen County GM assembly plant in Lafayette Township won’t generate much revenue, said Scott Harrold, senior economic development specialist with Allen County.
An abatement on personal property for replacing obsolete equipment at Uniroyal takes effect this year and reduced the plant’s assessed value by $28 million. So this year, the company will pay taxes based on an assessed value of about $44 million, Harrold said.
But that lesser assessed value was enough to keep the property off the county’s top 10 list this year, Renninger said.
Several abatements stretching back to 1995 also reduced General Motor’s total property value and its tax bill, Harrold said.
Despite those reductions, General Motors remains the county’s largest taxpayer and provides revenue that benefits Southwest Allen County Schools and Aboite Township, Blosser said.
Aboite property owners pay the highest taxes in the county and without GM the taxes would be even higher, Blosser said.
A GM spokeswoman declined to comment.
The county’s second-largest taxpayer is Glenbrook Square, which jumped over previous No. 2, Verizon North Inc. Verizon’s property value increased $8 million compared with the mall’s almost $70 million jump, which is currently under appeal, according to information provided by the auditor’s office.
Indiana Michigan Power has held steady as the fourth-largest property tax owner since 2004 while its assessed value has changed little from the past two years. This year, the utility’s $2.8 million tax bill is based on a value of $113.5 million.
NIPSCO, however, dropped off the list this year because of changes in its assessment, Blosser said.
The natural gas and power utility received a tax abatement through the state for the second year in a row. The abatement is good for three years and caused its property value to drop, O’Day said.
But a new utility has joined the list. Aqua Indiana, which serves northwest and parts of southwest Allen County, owns property worth $52 million and will pay about $1.1 million in property taxes this year, according to the auditor’s office.
The city of Fort Wayne started an eminent domain action in 2002 to acquire the tax-paying system north of the city, which serves about 9,000 water customers and 1,600 sewer customers. Two city-funded appraisals of the utility’s northern portion valued it at almost $17 million.
But planned investments totaling about $30 million over the next four or five years would likely increase the utility’s value further. And Aqua Indiana vice-president and regional manager Bill Etzler believes the additional taxes the utility would pay would move it further up on the county’s top 10 list, he said.
“The fact that we do pay a lot of property tax and if the city acquires us, what size hole does that leave?” Etzler said.
Since 2002, the water and sewer utility has invested almost $32 million to replace pipes and update infrastructure. Those improvements were the main reason behind the spike in the utility’s assessed value, Etzler said.
The utility has seen its tax bill grow each year for the past three years, in part because of the improvements, he said. Aqua Indiana paid an additional 22 percent in property taxes this year compared to 2006, he said.
aiacone@jg.net
