GUIILDERLAND — The Guilderland Town Board settled a number of tax certiorari cases in June that had been hung up in the courts for years, according to the town’s assessor, Karen Van Wagenen.

The town is now in the process of revaluing all the properties in Guilderland with the goal of making each at full-market value. Guilderland, which used to conduct townwide revaluations every four or five years since moving to full-value assessment in 1980, hadn’t done so since 2005.

Residents on the edge of town, with properties in school districts other than Guilderland, were particularly hard hit by the skewed tax rolls.

On Tuesday, July 10, the governor signed into law two bills that will create special segmented equalization rates for the parts of Guilderland that lie outside the Guilderland School District boundaries, and that will improve transparency in the rate-setting process by informing municipal officials of problems earlier in the process.

The legislation, which was sponsored by Republican Senator George Amedore and Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, will create a temporary one-year special segmented equalization rate for the affected portions of town, giving residents some relief until the town completes revaluation in 2019.

Fahy and Amedore also sponsored a third bill, which would require final equalization rates be set at least 30 days prior to the levy of taxes. The third bill still awaits the governor’s signature.

The entities involved in the now-settled proceedings — which are the next step beyond grieving an assessment — are an anchor store in Crossgates Mall, an office building on Western Avenue, and a drugstore at the corner of routes 20 and 155. The town board’s votes were all 4 to 0, with Rosemary Centi absent:  

— Macy’s Retail Holdings Inc., 1 Crossgates Mall Rd.: This case has been in court since 2016, when the company grieved its assessment and then went on to file a certiorari at Albany County Supreme Court, Van Wagenen said.

Macy’s in Crossgates Mall had been assessed at $11.5 million since the 2005 town-wide revaluation, according to Van Wagenen.

Both the town and Macy’s had appraisals done, Van Wagenen said, and “actually they came out pretty close.”

The town’s appraisal came in at $10,600,000, and the appraisal done for Macy’s was $9,950,000, said Town Attorney James Melita at the June 19 meeting.

Retail stores in recent years have often had declining value because of the switch in shopping habits from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping.

The difference was only about $700,000, said Town Supervisor Peter Barber at the meeting, noting that this amounts to about $178 in tax payments to the town.

Because the appraisals were so close, Melita told the town board, “It made settlement make sense.”

The company’s full-market value is now set at $10.3 million, Van Wagenen said; the town applied the equalization rate to determine the assessed value for the years 2016, 2017, and 2018. The amount of this refund is $14,870.64, said Van Wagenen.

“Once we do the reval, we’ll be determining full-market value and assessed value, and they should be the same,” said Van Wagenen.

The school board also participated in the litigation and shared the costs, Melita told the board.

Macy’s has its own assessment because it is a separate building from the rest of the mall, with its own tax I.D., Melita told the board;

— Rosetti and Rosetti Family Irrevocable Trust, 2010 Western Ave.: This matter, involving an office building on the corner of Sumter Avenue and route 20 in Westmere has been in court since 2013 and has involved numerous negotiation meetings, Van Wagenen said.

“We were finally able to resolve the case, after all these years,” Van Wagenen said. “We had a conference with their attorney, and we discussed it, and they finally decided to be reasonable, and we came up with figures to settle it at,” she said.

The property at 2010 Western Ave. has been assessed by the town at $618,000 since 2005, Van Wagenen said.

The plan is to assess the property, for the first three years of the dispute — 2013, 2014, and 2015 — at $500,000 each year. After that, the town will apply the equalization rates for 2016, 2017, and 2018, Van Wagenen said.

“They may have wanted to settle it before we go into the reval,” Van Wagenen said, adding, “That may have encouraged them to be reasonable.”

The total amount of the refund, said Barber at the meeting, is $1,655.58.

Melita said this was the town’s longest-running tax certiorari negotiation. He said this settlement was reached without getting a formal appraisal done, but instead by getting some informal numbers about comparable properties. Not having an appraisal done benefits the town, Melita said, because of the expense of a full appraisal; and

— Walgreen Eastern Inc., at the intersection of routes 20 and 155: This matter has been in court since 2017, Van Wagenen said.

This proceeding marks the third time that Walgreen’s has asked for a change in assessment, Van Wagenen said, adding that the property has been assessed at $2.5 million since 2014.

“The reduction pretty much puts them in line with the two other pharmacies on that corner,” said Van Wagenen said.

In 2007, when the building was brand-new, it was assessed at $3,220,500, said Van Wagenen.

The company field a grievance — and a certiorari, Van Wagenen said she believed — the following year, in 2008, “and got the assessment reduced to $2,680,000.

“Then in 2014, they filed again,” she said, “and they were reduced to $2,500,000.”

The company has accepted the town’s recent offer to reduce the amount to $2,134,100, Van Wagenen said. This reduction will bring the building in line with the other two drugstores at the same intersection, she said. The refund in this case is $886.04, said Van Wagenen.

She had expected the company to negotiate again, she said, but instead it accepted the offer.

She noted that the assessed values of CVS at the same intersection is $1,050,600. This building dates from the 1960s, she said. “But it’s in like the perfect spot, apparently.”

That of Rite Aid, the other pharmacy near the intersection of routes 20 and 155, she said, is $1,390,000. This property was built in 1997, she said; it is newer, but not quite on the corner.

Executive Park proceeding starting

At the June 19 meeting, the town board voted, 3 to 0, with Lee Carmen abstaining, to approve Hafner Valuation Group to do appraisals for the town in its tax certiorari proceedings on two buildings on Executive Park Drive, at numbers 2 and 4.

The town and the owners are “pretty far apart” on the numbers, Melita told the board.

Barber said that the buildings, at 2 and 4 Executive Dr., are currently appraised at $2.2 million and $4.1 million.

“The owners are seeking roughly half that, $1.1 and $2.2,” Barber said.

It would be beneficial to the town to have documentation to support any further negotiations or discussions, Melita said, and the town has a court-ordered deadline, for the appraisal, of mid-August, Melita said.

The school district is not involved in this proceeding, Melita said.

A couple of years ago, Melita said, Hafner worked on the town with a certiorari on the tower and another property at Executive Park, and “they were very responsive.”

Current status of reval process

Van Wagenen said on Monday that the town has been holding public meetings in different parts of the town to inform residents about the revaluation process and to answer their questions.

She said the town will send out inventory verification forms at about the end of July.

These are needed, she said, because the town has on file information such as square footage, number of fireplaces, accessory buildings, and whether homes have pools, and it needs to confirm if there have been any changes.

“Some of those items don’t require building permits, so we wouldn’t know,” she said.

The town will get the forms back at the beginning of September and will then update its data with that information and begin analyzing the data, Van Wagenen said.

“We’ll send out impact letters — how the assessment has changed or not changed — probably at the end of January or the very beginning of February,” she said.

Last year’s equalization rate was 75.58, and this year’s will be 77.9, she said, so “ the ones for this year should be a little bit better” for people who live on the edges of the town and whose homes are in different school districts.

However, Van Wagenen said, while Guilderland’s rate has gone up slightly, she understands that Bethlehem and New Scotland’s are going down a little.

Meanwhile, the town is applying for a segmented rate to be used in these areas that are in other school districts, but the town will not receive an answer, as to whether this rate is approved, until mid-August, “so it’ll be another last-minute thing.”

If the segmented rate is approved, residents in those areas will be “a little bit better off,” Van Wagenen said.

The first time that the equalization rate will be at 100 percent, Van Wagenen said, will be next year, in 2019.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer added information on the two bills recently signed by the governor