The concept of a property-wide reassessment keeps coming at various levels of government in the county.

Tuesday night marked the Warren County Planning Commission’s opportunity to discuss the topic.

“We would participate in reassessment if the commissioners did,” Chairman Paul Pascuzzi said. “We’ll see what they plan on doing. That’ll be discussed in the next several months, I’m sure.”

The county’s assessment dates to the 1980s.

Property tax revenue has declined substantially as many large commercial entities have successfully appealed their assessments in recent years. The end result of those appeals — which are successful in large part because of the county’s aged assessment — is that the average property owner bears an unfair share of the county’s overall tax burden.

County Planner Dan Glotz said that the Council of Governments “has it high on their list too.”

Glotz said that one of the major challenges is educating the public on the benefits of reassessment, noting that there is much misinformation — such as, for example, that people’s taxes will go up as a result.

He said that the county’s staff and commissioners understand the issue and noted there is a lot of “buy in” from the school district.

“You would think this should get a lot of traction,” he added, but he said the cost is “not a cheap date” and it will “only get more expensive” as time passes.

Pascuzzi added that the county’s municipal officials understand why it’s important as the municipalities only “get so far with the values you have today. (It’s) not fair, not fair at all.”

He noted that the “top 10” assessment appeals are where you would find “the people who have been benefiting from not having an assessment.”

COMMISSION DISCUSSES CAMP AFFIDAVITS

Zoning Officer Michael Lyon noted that the Uniform Construction Code exempts people from building recreational cabins from the building code.

But, he said, the process has “been abused” to build what one would consider a home rather than a camp.

Lyon said the use of the affidavit “comes with an awful lot of restrictions,” one of which requires any buyer of the structure to be notified that it was built under the affidavit and not subject to typical residential inspections.

That notification, he said, has broken down as there is nothing in a deed search that would make a prospective buyer aware.

He said he’s been working with the Register and Recorder’s Office to potentially include the designation on the deed page and also make it part of the county’s zoning ordinance application.

“We need to close this gap,” Pascuzzi said.