Buckfield land assessments to jump more than 30 percent

BUCKFIELD — The Board of Assessors in Buckfield has acted on the recommendation of Town Clerk Cynthia M. Dunn, and will raise land assessments across the board.  Based on varying tax tables, rates will go up, on average, over 30 percent. 

However, assessors expect a negligible impact on tax bills, as the higher valuations should bring a resulting drop in the mil rate.  The 2003 mil rate was 20.10.

Based on the $1,360,610.74 budget approved at the annual town meeting in June, the 2004 mil rate had been estimated, under the old tax schedules, at 20.75 per $1,000 of assessed value.  Dunn stated that she would not be able to calculate the new mil rate until “everything has been plugged in” using the new valuations and accounting for changes in use, such as new constructions and subdivisions.  To do this, she is currently waiting on updated tax maps and individual property assessments.

According to Dunn, this reassessment of land values was long overdue.

“Keep in mind, the Board of Assessors is obligated to assess at fair market value,” said Dunn.  “Our buildings are good, it’s our land,”

Dunn observed that land valuations had “plummeted” in relation to market value “in just the last two or three years.”

“I’ve been here [as an assessor] for six years,” noted Board of Assessors Chairman Joanne Bly, “and I’ve never revised this.  We’ve looked at it, but we’ve never revised it.”

“Yeah, you look at it every year,” Dunn laughed.

In preparing for the annual assessors meeting, at which the tax commitment is set, Dunn had solicited land valuation information from several surrounding communities.  Sumner, Hartford, and Norway responded by sending copies of their tax tables.

“The other towns that I wrote to did not respond,” said Dunn.

Dunn also noted average land valuations throughout Oxford County, citing information provided by Mike Rogers of the Maine Revenue Service. 

According to Rogers’ report, the average valuation for a one acre developed lot in Oxford County is $20,000.  The first acre of an undeveloped lot averages $16,000.  The average for additional land, sometimes referred to as back acreage, or raw land, is $530 per acre.

By contrast, a one acre developed lot in Buckfield was previously assessed at $9,720.  The first acre of an undeveloped lot, referred to as a “potential building lot,” was $3,580.  Raw land was valued at $280 per acre.

“We are long ways in arrears, aren’t we,” noted assessor Oscar Gammon.

Although they are technically separate bodies, the make-up of Buckfield’s Board of Assessors, in practice, mirrors that of the Board of Selectmen.  As the board looked over the figures, they were, at first, reluctant to touch the land valuations.  However, it was Gammon who was most vocal in resisting any change.

“Well I’ll give you my opinion,” he said.  “I’ve sat and looked at this and thought a lot about it.  I am very afraid to do anything with these values until I find out what is going to happen with the [Pelesky] referendum. 

“I know by Mike Rogers’ figures that we are way, way low.  But, at the same time, do I want to drive the people in this town to vote for the tax cap?  No. 

“And I’m afraid that’s what would happen if we upped the value of people’s property significantly.”

Dunn noted that decreasing valuations, in relation to the State’s assessment of Buckfield’s overall fair market value, could jeopardize the homestead exemption for local taxpayers. Currently, Buckfield is at 82 percent of the State’s valuation.  When a town falls below 70 percent, it is required to undergo a full revaluation. 

Dunn noted that the state allows a 10 percent addition to the current percentage, meaning that Buckfield can give 92 percent of the homestead exemption available.  The goal then would be to get the valuation within 90 percent of the State valuation, so that the town could give the full 100 percent of the homestead exemption.

“I’m almost afraid that people won’t get that part of it,” cautioned Bly.  “They’re only going to see the increase [in taxes.]”

“Oh, when they get the tax bill, they’ll see it,” said Dunn.  “They’re looking for that $7,000 exemption, or whatever it is for that property.  But if they get a tax bill, and it now says $6,000, or $6,500, I have to believe they are going to question why.”

“My question is, are we just fooling with the numbers so that the State says we can have this deduction,” asked Assessor Chris Hayward, “or are we actually raising taxes.  Are people actually going to end up paying more?”

“You’re mil rate comes down, you end up paying the same dollars,” answered Town Manager Glen Holmes.  “It all stays about they same.”

“I don’t want to see anyone’s taxes start jumping up,” said Hayward.  “So my thought is, it’s just a matter of fooling with the numbers, so that they get more of a tax credit, but they’re not really paying any more.”

“I’m hearing a numbers game, but that’s not what this is all about,” said Dunn.  “It’s not a numbers game.”

Dunn also noted that Buckfield had historically tried to keep raw acreage assessments low, as an incentive for large landowners to keep their property intact.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said,  “but when it gets us to a point that our land values are dragging us down.  We were at 96 [percent of market value], then we were at 92, now we’re down to the low 80s.  When is it going to get to the point where we are 70 and we are required to be revaluated?”

“Not far off,” agreed Gammon.

“If we have to do a revaluation, we have to hire someone to do that,” observed Hayward.  “And that costs us money.”

“You’re look at 50-odd thousand there,” said Gammon.

“The Board of Assessors has the power to make the correction now,” said Dunn.

“I don’t know, I’m stuck,” lamented Bly.  “Do we absolutely have to do it this year?”

Assessors noted that land valuations in Buckfield are currently far below recent selling prices.  Relying on his experience as an excavating contractor, Hayward noted that the values were also far lower than the cost of installing a well and septic system.

“Right now, property is hot,” said Hayward.

“You know, sitting here talking, maybe I’ve changed my opinion,” said Gammon.  “It’s a hard thing when an assessor has to look at this, but it has to be done.

“I’m not sure but we should bite the bullet, because we are so low,” he said.

Once it was finally agreed to update the land valuations, it was only a quick matter of picking round numbers.

Assessments for an in-town one-acre lot – defined as all developed lots within the service area of the Buckfield Village Corporation (Water Department) District – will go up 33.74 percent, from $9,720 to $13,000.  Smaller in-town lots will go up by even more significant amounts, with the greatest increase (53.5 percent) being for a quarter acre lot.

Assessments for an in-town home occupation lot will go up 30.9 percent, from $10,690 to $14,000.  In-town commercial lots will go up 32.2 percent, from $12,100 to $16,000.

Assessments for an out-of-town one-acre lot on a tarred road will go up 33.98 percent, from $7,520 to $10,000.  Assessments for an out-of-town one-acre lot on a gravel road will go up 13.64 percent, from $6,600 to $7,500.

Out-of-town home occupation lots will go up 23.97 percent, from $9,680 to $12,000.  Out-of-town commercial lots will for up 27.27 percent, from $11,000 to $14,000

Raw land, defined as that amount of land on a lot after the first developed acre, will go up 25 percent, from $280 per acre to $350 per acre.  In Buckfield, any lot that has not been developed has the first acre assessed as a “potential building lot.”  This rate will go up 39.66 percent, from $3,580 to $5,000.

“These are big jumps, but you need to do it, said Gammon.  “And we’re still low [compared to average Oxford County valuations.]

“In the future this should be done more often, so you don’t get as big a jump,” Gammon acknowledged.  “This is as much my fault as anyone’s because I was the last one who adjusted them.”

“I know, we just put it off because…” said Bly, before trailing off.

“I know, you were just waiting for me [to take the blame] weren’t you,” joked Hayward, who had just been elected to his first terms as selectman and assessor in June.

“Truthfully, we’ll have to look at it again next year, and get them [valuations] where they belong” said Gammon, “and then every two years after that.”

Dunn expects the new mil rate to be calculated “no later than the end of October,” with tax bills to go out soon thereafter.  Payments on the first half of the tax bill will be due by December 1, with the remaining portion due by June 1, 2005.

Buckfield Library expansion hits snag

BUCKFIELD – It seemed like a simple idea, even a good one.  But sometimes, where municipal bureaucracies are involved, even the most straightforward of projects can become maddeningly complex.

As part of the bond package approved by voters last November, matching grant money was made available for library construction.  The trustees of Buckfield’s Zadoc Long Free Public Library then set out, through in-kind donations and the sale of books, to secure the necessary funding to obtain grants for a $12,000 expansion project. 

The plan was modest.  Trustees wanted to build a 12-foot by 12-foot extension onto the back of the building in order to add a handicapped accessible bathroom.

“This discussion grew from actually coming into compliance with handicapped accessibility into the building itself,” said Virgil Tilton, President of the Library’s Board of Trustees.  “Originally, we needed to do something.  The [existing] ramp needs to be refurbished no matter what because it is rotting away.  And that’s when we started talking about the bath and would the area be large enough to have a handicapped bathroom.    

“The [existing] toilet facility has been unpleasant for a number of years,” said the normally taciturn Tilton, leaving the exact nature of the unpleasantness to his audience’s imagination.

“We thought, at this point in time, if there was a grant, if we could also apply the grant to add a handicapped accessible bathroom, well, this would be the time to do it.”

According to Library Director Everett Tilton, the library is not actually required to have a handicapped accessible bathroom.  However, having one would ultimately make the library eligible for a wider variety of additional grants.

“There’s Public Library Standards and then ADA [Americans with Disability Act] requirements,” he said.  “If we don’t have a public restroom, then we meet the ADA requirements because it’s not used by everyone.  But Public Library Standards say that we have to have a public restroom, and if we don’t then that prevents us from applying for any money through them.”

So, the scheme was to spend a little money now, in order to become potentially eligible for a lot more money later on.  When the Tilton’s presented this plan to selectmen, their idea was enthusiastically received.  Approval was immediate. 

At the time, it seemed the biggest problem would be assuring that the architectural and aesthetic integrity of the building – on the National Register of Historic Buildings since 1994 – remained intact.

“Everett actually found an old window, one of the original windows,” said Virgil Tilton.  “We thought we would use that in the addition, in the hallway.”

But then, as can happen to even the best laid plans, things began to unravel.

In one of her last acts as Code Enforcement Officer, outgoing Town Manager Cynthia M. Dunn was forced to deny a building permit to the library.  New Town Manager Glen Holmes agrees with the denial.

“As the new Code Enforcement Officer,” he said, “if a permit came across my desk tomorrow, I don’t feel that I could sign it.”

At issue is a clause in Buckfield’s Building Permit, Lot Size and Setback Requirement Ordinance, which requires that structures must encroach no more than 15 feet on a property line, or 30 feet to another structure.

The library addition would come within 10 1/2 feet of the property line.  Ironically, Virgil Tilton himself is the abutting landowner.

The Tilton’s then took their cause to the Board of Appeals – which had not been given cause to sit for nearly a year – but to little avail.  Although that board was also supportive, in concept, of the library expansion, they were unable to grant a waiver. 

At Buckfield’s 2003 annual town meeting, voters had approved changes to the building ordinance limiting the powers of the Board of Appeals.  Among other things, these changes replaced references to variances with conditions for waivers, actually reduced property line setbacks to 15 feet, and mandated the degree to which the appeals board could act.

That latter clause in the ordinance now reads: “In no case may the Board of Appeals allow property extensions to be set closer than 15 feet from a property line, or closer than 30 feet from a structure on a private property.”

“To me, it’s clear that we don’t have the jurisdiction,” said appeals board member Richard Clark.

Chairman Fred Greenwood had stronger words.

“To me, that shouldn’t be there in the first place,” he said.  “I think we were doing a good job before it was there.  I think, it’s just somebody wants to run things, and they put that in there to stop us from doing what we do.  They actually put the appeals board out of business is what they did. 

“What we had been doing,” Greenwood explained, “was if somebody came in and they wanted to go closer to somebody else’s line, the peoples’ line that they wanted to go next too, if they didn’t object, if they’d write a statement, have it notarized, and put it with the application, that they didn’t care if somebody built there, we was letting them do it. 

“And the planning board didn’t like it, because we were giving out too many of these things [waivers].  I don’t see anything that we’ve done that has hurt the town,” said Greenwood. 

The next trip for the Tilton’s was to follow an appeals board letter directed to the planning board.  The hope was that a recommendation might be made to remove the “in no case” wording from the ordinance, thus freeing the appeals board to act.  With a special town meeting already scheduled, and only weeks away, there was some excitement that the planning board might be able to make a recommendation, and hold a public hearing, in time for townsfolk to also vote on a warrant to amend the building ordinance.  

“I would be opposed to getting rid of the ‘in no case may the Board of Appeals allow,’” said Planning Board member Wes Ackley.  “We put that in specifically for the reason that things would come back to the planning board for discussion and passage.”

That refusal to even consider amending the ordinance did not seem to sit well with appeals board members, who had chosen to attend the planning board meeting.

“I’m confused,” challenged Clark.  “Is the appeals board the appeals board, or is the planning board the appeals board?”

“I don’t feel as though when that went through [in 2003] that the towns people had a proper chance to vote on it,” said Greenwood, “because they grouped it with other articles to get the town meeting over with, and they passed a bunch of articles at the same time.  I think that, in all fairness, you ought to put it back towards the people so that they know what they are voting on.  Because essentially, what you are saying is, we don’t need an appeals board.  The planning board is going to do it all.  And that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be set up.”

“The reason that we had put that in,” said Planning Board member Margot Seikman, in an attempt to mollify an increasingly heated discussion, “was we had reduced the side setbacks and rear setbacks from 25 feet to 15.  And we just sort of felt that, as a trade off for having actually reduced those setbacks, we ought to make sure that they weren’t entrenched any further, for fire safety reasons, and privacy, ands so forth.

“With a comprehensive plan, which we are definitely working on, we will be able to have zoning,” Seikman offered.  “And then I think possibly, in the village, we would want to perhaps have different rules for setbacks.” 

“If there’s wasteland next door, and somebody wants to build within 10 feet of it, what harm is it going to do if the other people don’t care?” asked Greenwood.  He was referring to the fact that there is considerable land between the library and Tilton’s home.  Presumably, as this area contains Tilton’s septic and leech field it would never be developed. 

“To me, people should be able use their land to its fullest extent so long as it isn’t bothering anyone else,” said Greenwood.  “I think if you are going to take everyone’s rights away, then you ought to be around with your checkbook and pay them for what you’re taking of their property.”

Ackley responded with the planning board’s answer, although Chairman Judy Berg corrected that the rebuttal was, in fact, Ackley’s own.

“In giving a freedom to move closer to the line,” said Ackley, “you are taking away the ability of an abutting landowner to act on his property.  You’re throwing out the contingency that the current property owner says, ‘Yeah, I don’t care about that.’  What we, or I, say to that is, your talking to the current property owner who may turn around and sell his property in a year.  You are taking away the possibility of abutting landowners to act in the future.”

“You can go on that way forever,” said Greenwood.  “Twenty years down the road somebody might object to it.  Well twenty years down the road somebody might object to a lot of things!”

“There is also the public interest,” said Ackley.  “If you start cutting down property line distances from more than 25 feet between structures, then you are incurring a safety hazard.”

“If you want to be in a dictatorship fine,” concluded Greenwood in a puff. “But if you don’t, then I think that things ought to change a little bit.”

With it clear that the planning board had no intention of approving a change in ordinance, Ackley began to present other options.  His first suggestion was that Virgil Tilton grant an easement to the library, but then it was pointed out that an easement cannot make up for a setback.

Another suggestion was that Tilton convey a strip of land to the library.  To this, Tilton pointed out that, when he had re-surveyed the land originally belonging to his father years ago, he had actually extended the library property by 10 feet.  Now, his septic system ran right up to the property line. 

Well, Ackley proposed, why couldn’t Tilton give the land, and then the town could grant back an easement for his septic system.  A simple look from Tilton was enough to convey that the cures were rapidly becoming more troublesome than the disease.

It was then that planning board members seized upon the grandfathering concept, when they realized that the current handicapped access ramp ended at a deck, where the addition was to go, which conveniently also measured 12 feet by 12 feet.

“Oh, you guys may be in luck,” said Berg.  “You’re building new, but you’re not changing the footprint.”

Planning board members postulated that the library might be able to proceed without obtaining approval from any town official.  The catch being that a building permit is not is not required for ordinary repair and maintenance, when renovations are of a fair market value under $5,000, or when an expansion of footprint is not involved.

“I’m thinking of the case in shoreland zoning where a deck is closed in to make a porch, or even a bedroom,” agreed Seikman. “There has never seemed to be a problem.  In my mind I was thinking of that as a precedent.”

“So a non-conforming deck could be changed to a non-conforming addition?” asked Dunn incredulously.   “Change its use completely?  We’ve gone through this before.  Intent is one thing, what is actually written is another.  I think it’s a legal question under our new ordinance.”

But, with the genie of a grandfathered use now out of the bottle, discussion then devolved, over the next twenty minutes, into a debate over whether overhangs and such would count against the setback.

That question left unresolved, Library Trustee Vivianne Holmes took one last stab at a simple solution.  With the library being town property, might it be exempt from its own ordinances, she wondered.  An opinion was offered that the town of Buckfield does not enjoy the same liberties as the State of Maine to pick and choose which of its laws it will obey.

Berg did present one final solution: although the planning board would not deign to recommend a change of the ordinance, if the citizen’s themselves chose to restore some powers to the emasculated appeals board, they were certainly free to circulate a petition to do so.

“The town cannot give a waiver for its ordinance,” noted Holmes. “[That] won’t hold up legal muster at all.   [Voters] can only change the ordinance.” 

That concept, although it held promise, fell on deaf ears amongst those with enough personal authority to start a petition drive.

“I can’t speak for the board [of trustees],” said Virgil Tilton, “but I don’t want to be involved in a petition process for the library to change the ordinance [for the entire town.]”

Without any resolution in sight, the planning board voted to seek a legal opinion from the Maine Municipal Authority on the grandfathering possibility, as well as the pressing matter of overhangs.

Meanwhile, the timeline for the library to apply for its grant will have passed on Friday, October 8.

. 

“We have a process which we are going to be applying for other grants as well,” said Virgil Tilton, “so hopefully we can follow though on those.”

In the meantime, if you are in the library and you need to use the bathroom, Everett will send you next door to Tilton’s Market.  Once there, ask Virgil for directions.  There’s a very good possibility that he’ll tell you exactly where to go.