Homeowners Near Water Feeling Pinch of Revaluation

Commercial property owners in Fairfield aren't the only ones feeling the pinch from the recent townwide revaluation.

Homeowners who live on and near Pine Creek Avenue also are feeling the effects of higher property assessments and a large jump in the tax rate for 2011-12 that is needed to make up for the majority of residents who saw assessed values on their homes decline.

"That whole area along the waterfront, they've been hit with big increases," Don Lamberty, president of the Pine Creek Association, a neighborhood group, said outside the Representative Town Meeting Monday night at Osborn Hill School, where about a dozen homeowners protested their and their neighbors' higher property assessments.

Lamberty said one resident's tax bill was due to increase from $20,000 to $32,000 due to the increased assessment and 2011-12 tax rate of 22.47 mills, which takes effect July 1 and increases 16.6 percent from this fiscal year's tax rate of 19.27 mills. Lamberty said most homeowners on Pine Creek Avenue, particularly those who live on the water side of the street, are seeing dramatic tax increases due to higher assessed values on their homes. "We think it's an issue of unfairness. We think the assessment is unfair," he said.

Lamberty said the Pine Creek Association recently held a meeting and 17 homeowners raised their hands when asked if they planned to challenge their new property assessments in Bridgeport Superior Court. Most had gone to the town's Board of Assessment Appeals seeking a reduction but were denied, Lamberty said. "There's going to be a lot of lawsuits," he said, adding that some residents saw a 30 percent to 40 percent increase in their property assessments. "The issue is fairness. The assessment doesn't reflect what the value of the house is."

Lamberty, who lives on French Street, said his property assessment went up 5 percent.

Laura Incerto, who lives on Pine Creek Avenue, said her property assessment went from $379,000 to $488,000, a 29 percent increase that gives her house an appraised, or market, value of $700,000. But Incerto said a house next to and similar to hers recently sold for $550,000.

"I'm like, 'Where are you coming up with this?' " Incerto said of her new $488,000 property assessment. "The house [next door] was on the market for three years and sold for $550,000...I've done nothing to my house."

Incerto said her tax bill was due to rise July 1 from $7,400 a year to $10,500 a year, which would be an increase of 42 percent. "It's a 900-square-foot home and not on the water side of Pine Creek Avenue," she said, adding that her house was built in 1906 and no improvements had been made to it since the last townwide revaluation five years ago.

Incerto said residents who live on the water side of Pine Creek Avenue also are being badly hit and that the higher property assessments and huge jump in the tax rate beginning July 1 are driving them out of their homes.

Incerto said the Board of Assessment Appeals twice denied her attempt to get her property assessment lowered and that she planned to appeal her new property assessment in Bridgeport Superior Court but wasn't hiring an attorney to do it. She said she'd represent herself and knew what her house was worth.

Other residents outside Osborn Hill School Monday night said 2005, when the last townwide revaluation was done, was the peak of the real estate market and they couldn't understand how their property assessments could be higher as of Oct. 1, 2010 than they were back then.

About a dozen homeowners on or near Pine Creek Avenue went into Osborn Hill School's all-purpose room Monday night carrying signs in silent protest of their higher property assessments. RTM members didn't acknowledge the residents, nor did the residents try to get up to speak.

Town Assessor Thomas F. Browne Jr. said Tuesday that he thinks the issue homeowners on and near Pine Creek Avenue are concerned about is mostly tied to the dramatic increase in the tax rate, which rises 16.6 percent from this fiscal year to next fiscal year. Asked if he thought property assessments on and near Pine Creek Avenue were accurate, Browne said, "There might be some room in some areas."

Browne said several months ago, after the revaluation done by Municipal Valuation Associates on Reef Road in Fairfield was finished, that houses near the water had seen increases in their property assessments. Several homeowners on Harbor Road in Fairfield's Southport neighborhood already have filed lawsuits challenging their new property assessments.

A review of land records shows houses on Pine Creek Avenue have sold for princely sums since 2005, even those, like Incerto's, that are not on the water side of the street.

A two-story house on 0.12 acre at 47 Pine Creek Ave., with three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms, built in 2003 and with a living area of 2,250 square feet and eight total rooms, sold in April 2006 for $1.3 million, according to land records.

A 1 1/4-story Cape on 0.15 acre at 67 Pine Creek Ave., with three bedrooms and one bathroom, built in 1964 and with a living area of 1,050 square feet and four total rooms, sold in September 2006 for $859,900, according to land records.

A two-story house on .06 acre at 119 Pine Creek Ave., with three bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, built in 2005 and with a living area of 2,245 square feet and seven total rooms, sold in December 2007 for $975,000, according to land records.

Incerto's house, at 89 Pine Creek Ave., is identified in land records as being two stories, on .07 acre, with two bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms, with a total of five rooms and a living area of 940 square feet. It was built in 1906, according to land records.

Browne said the house Incerto referenced was at 105 Pine Creek Ave. and had sold for $550,000 in October. That house, according to land records, is remarkably similar to Incerto's - it's two stories on .06 acre, with three bedrooms, one bathroom, a total of five rooms and a living area of 1,116 square feet. It was built in 1902, according to land records.