GUILDERLAND — There are fewer suits than in years’ past and certainly no eye-popping requests like slashing an assessment by $162 million, but the town of Guilderland is once again facing multiple lawsuits from landowners looking to collectively reduce the assessed value of their properties by millions of dollars.

In multiple tax certiorari cases filed this month, eight owners of over 60 properties are asking the Albany County Supreme Court to lower their collective assessment from $43.7 million to $14.2 million.

Also getting in on the act this year is the town itself, which is suing the city of Albany to lower the assessed value of an isosceles-shaped parcel with an area listed as zero. Guilderland is looking to lower the value of the property, which is located on the city-town line from $202,000 to $103,500.

The single largest reduction sought is by the owners of Presidential Townhome Rentals at 6086 State Farm Road.

The Presidential Estates Association is asking for its assessed value to be reduced by $12.5 million, from about $14 million to about $1.49 million.

The owner of the luxuriously-priced Apex at Crossgates apartment-and-townhome complex is seeking to lower its property’s assessment by $7 million, from $10.7 million to $3.6 million.

The United Group of Companies of Troy purchased the 20-acre site from Crossgates, which shepherded the project through a multi-year, litigation-plagued approval process, in June 2022 for $5.43 million.

Rent in $60 million development — consisting of 192 apartments and 30 townhomes, which are advertised for occupancy in November — starts at a low of $2,045 per month for a 860-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit, and adds about $700 for each additional bedroom (Apex offers two- and three-bedroom units), with rent topping out at $4,175 for a 2,200-square-foot two-bed, two-bath townhome.

The remaining multi-million-dollar reduction request comes from the owners of 1450 Western Avenue, a five-story glass and steel structure housing the administrative offices of the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

The Picotte Companies are looking to reduce the property’s $10.2 million assessed value by $4 million. 

The $30 million aggregate assessment reduction the handful of property owners are seeking is a far cry from just a few years ago when 32 lawsuits were filed by the owners of 78 properties seeking a collective reduction of $378 million, on $709 million worth of assessed value.

The 2020 suits were similar to this year’s reduction requests in that most of the value was held by a handful owners, with the top five properties — Crossgates among the — making up $428.5 million of the $709 million collective assessment and nearly 60 percent of the reduction sought.