GUILDERLAND — Ownership of two vacant lots on Route 20 that belonged to the Guilderland Public Library has been transferred to the school district, after the board of education voted on Feb. 13 to accept the transfer.

The two vacant lots, separated by lines of trees, are on the same side of Western Avenue as the library, to its immediate east. The deeds on them were filed in 2000 and 2005, library Director Timothy Wiles said on Friday. He is married to the school district’s superintendent, Marie Wiles.

The library had once planned to expand to the east but, in 2012, a $13 million project to expand and upgrade the library was voted down.

The library has retained a library architect and design consultant, Paul Mays, to develop a plan for the renovation of the library’s building and grounds, Wiles told The Enterprise, and the plan may include an expansion of the main parking lot into one or both of the parcels.

But because those plans are not completed and have not been voted on by the board, and because March 1 is the taxable date, the library sought to transfer the property, Wiles said.

One property, with 105 feet of road frontage and 193 feet in depth, is assessed at $71,412 in full-market value and the other, with 75 feet of road frontage and 201 feet in depth, is assessed at $117,647, according to Albany County assessment rolls.

Property taxes on the two parcels for 2018 total $1,527.26, according to Guilderland’s receiver of taxes, Lynne Buchanan, while school taxes for 2017-18 are $3,873.64. With the tax exemption, the only payment that will need to be made in January, Buchanan said, is water and sewer infrastructure fees, which will total $208.11.

When the two parcels were first acquired by the library, they were tax exempt, Neil Sanders, the assistant superintendent for business, told the school board on Feb. 13, as it discussed the issue prior to making a decision.

“And then … the town has come back, reevaluated that, and determined that it really should be on the tax roll, based on the library’s non-use of the land,” he said.

For the past year or two, since the formerly exempt property became taxable, taxes have been collected by the library, the library has written a check to the school district, and the school district has collected the taxes, Sanders said. The school district benefitted from receiving the tax funds, but the money was coming from “the exact same taxpayers,” Sanders said.

Now, because the land is being acquired by the school district, Sanders said, it will once again become tax exempt, “so there will no longer be a need for the library to tax property owners to pay a school-tax bill.”

The property on which the library stands is also owned by the school district, Sanders told the board.

As background, Timothy Wiles said on Friday that the library was chartered in 1957 as a free association library. In 1988, in preparation for building the library’s current home, which was completed in 1992, the library sought a new charter as a school district public library. A school district public library has the power to levy taxes.

Sanders told the board on Feb. 13, that the library on its own acquired the two other parcels. The library also has another parcel that was acquired independently, which is currently used for additional parking. The parcel where the library stands and the additional parking-lot parcel will both remain tax exempt, Sanders said.

“But because these two parcels are not being used for a library purpose … it was the decision of the assessor that they could not sustain the tax exemption and they would have to go on the rolls,” said Sanders.

The agreement between the library and the school district states that the land must be used for a school purpose or it reverts to the library. On Friday, Sanders told The Enterprise, “My understanding is that there’s a different section in the law between not-for-profits and school districts. With school districts — at least this is my understanding — the property that they own is presumed to be for public benefit, as opposed to not-for-profits, which have to demonstrate that in some way.”

The library currently has no long-term plans to use the land, but it does not want to sell it right now, in case its long-term plans change, Sanders told the school board.

The district considered whether it should merge all three properties, including the lot that holds the library, but decided against it, after learning from town officials that merging would make it harder, in the future, to separate them again if a decision were made to sell, for instance, the two vacant parcels; the district would need at that point to appear before the planning and zoning boards, Sanders said at the board meeting.

Leaving the two lots as independent parcels gives everyone, Sanders said, “maximum flexibility.”

Previously, the board of education’s business-practices committee had reviewed the agreement with the district’s lawyer, the board heard.

The vote was 8 to 0, with one member, Barbara Fraterrigo, abstaining. Fraterrigo is a longtime member of both the school board and the library board.