Landfill’s neighbors contest tax bills
BY Kelli Young
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Marilyn Stith has tolerated the garbage trucks rumbling down her road to the Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility landfill. She coped with the foul odors from the landfill last year by wearing a mask when she mowed and by keeping her backyard swimming pool under cover.
She has mostly kept her complaints to herself.
Until she opened her tax bill. County appraisers increased the value of her home in one year by $41,000.
“I don’t understand why,” said Stith, who has made no improvements to her home for the last decade. “If they want to buy my house at what they valued it at, they can buy it from me.”
VALUES SHOULD GO DOWN, NOT UP
She and 13 other property owners within a two-mile radius of Countywide, have asked the county Board of Revision to lower the property values set by the 2006 county reappraisal.
Christopher Beebe, who owns property on Haut Street SW, sent the board odor complaint logs and news clips describing the stench fromCountywide. Jason Beardmore sent an aerial map of Countywide with his five-acre property on Beth Avenue SW circled two miles north of it.They say the landfill made their neighborhoods less attractive to potential homebuyers, lowering the sales values. The 14 property owners want the Board of Revision — the county auditor, treasurer and a commissioner — to lower their property values by figures that range from $13,000 to $48,000.
On the flip side, county Treasurer Gary Zeigler has filed four complaints against Countywide, saying the value of the landfill property itself is too low. He filed similar complaints against Stark County landfill properties owned by American Landfill, Eslich Environmental and Minerva Enterprises. (See related story.)
None of the complaints will be easy to resolve, county auditor officials say.
INVESTIGATING THE COMPLAINTS
The challenge for the county auditor is how to gauge whether Countywide’s stench has affected sales of nearby properties.
“We’re not looking at that just because they live next to a landfill (that their values should be lowered) because that landfill has been there for a while,” said Chief Appraiser Jason Frost.
Instead, the office is examining whether the neighborhood has suffered because “they are near a landfill that has been in violation of ... EPA laws and has to make remediation.”
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Countywide to extinguish two underground fires, stop using 88 of its acres and take other steps to fight the odors.
Logically, Frost said, “you and I and 10 people could say, ‘Yeah, it (nearby property values) would be affected and it would be negative’ ... But we’re charged with having to support that conclusion.”
To determine the landfill’s effect, Frost must rule out other potential reasons, such as high interest rates, that could have changed the sales prices of area properties before the smell accelerated in late 2005.
“What makes it most difficult is there is a lack of sales down there,” Frost said. “When you don’t have a lot of sales to go with, it’s hard to know what would be ‘normal’ in the area.”
Real estate tax appraisals rely heavily on sale prices of similar properties in an area to establish a market value.
Countywide’s owner, Republic Services of Ohio, said the landfill has done nothing to affect property values one way or another.
“Property values around landfills do increase just like they increase anywhere else,” said Republic spokesman Will Flower. At the same time, sales nationwide “are slow right now and they should not confuse that with the inability to sell their home.”
The county Board of Revision hasn’t yet set a date to consider the property values.
If the board believes the values for the 15 residents should be lowered, Frost said, the decrease “probably would apply to those people who didn’t appeal, too. ... We want it to be uniformly applied.”
The Canton Repository
PIKE TWP - Marilyn Stith has tolerated the garbage trucks rumbling down her road to the Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility landfill. She coped with the foul odors from the landfill last year by wearing a mask when she mowed and by keeping her backyard swimming pool under cover.
She has mostly kept her complaints to herself.
Until she opened her tax bill. County appraisers increased the value of her home in one year by $41,000.
“I don’t understand why,” said Stith, who has made no improvements to her home for the last decade. “If they want to buy my house at what they valued it at, they can buy it from me.”
VALUES SHOULD GO DOWN, NOT UP
She and 13 other property owners within a two-mile radius of Countywide, have asked the county Board of Revision to lower the property values set by the 2006 county reappraisal.
Christopher Beebe, who owns property on Haut Street SW, sent the board odor complaint logs and news clips describing the stench fromCountywide. Jason Beardmore sent an aerial map of Countywide with his five-acre property on Beth Avenue SW circled two miles north of it.They say the landfill made their neighborhoods less attractive to potential homebuyers, lowering the sales values. The 14 property owners want the Board of Revision — the county auditor, treasurer and a commissioner — to lower their property values by figures that range from $13,000 to $48,000.
On the flip side, county Treasurer Gary Zeigler has filed four complaints against Countywide, saying the value of the landfill property itself is too low. He filed similar complaints against Stark County landfill properties owned by American Landfill, Eslich Environmental and Minerva Enterprises. (See related story.)
None of the complaints will be easy to resolve, county auditor officials say.
INVESTIGATING THE COMPLAINTS
The challenge for the county auditor is how to gauge whether Countywide’s stench has affected sales of nearby properties.
“We’re not looking at that just because they live next to a landfill (that their values should be lowered) because that landfill has been there for a while,” said Chief Appraiser Jason Frost.
Instead, the office is examining whether the neighborhood has suffered because “they are near a landfill that has been in violation of ... EPA laws and has to make remediation.”
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Countywide to extinguish two underground fires, stop using 88 of its acres and take other steps to fight the odors.
Logically, Frost said, “you and I and 10 people could say, ‘Yeah, it (nearby property values) would be affected and it would be negative’ ... But we’re charged with having to support that conclusion.”
To determine the landfill’s effect, Frost must rule out other potential reasons, such as high interest rates, that could have changed the sales prices of area properties before the smell accelerated in late 2005.
“What makes it most difficult is there is a lack of sales down there,” Frost said. “When you don’t have a lot of sales to go with, it’s hard to know what would be ‘normal’ in the area.”
Real estate tax appraisals rely heavily on sale prices of similar properties in an area to establish a market value.
Countywide’s owner, Republic Services of Ohio, said the landfill has done nothing to affect property values one way or another.
“Property values around landfills do increase just like they increase anywhere else,” said Republic spokesman Will Flower. At the same time, sales nationwide “are slow right now and they should not confuse that with the inability to sell their home.”
The county Board of Revision hasn’t yet set a date to consider the property values.
If the board believes the values for the 15 residents should be lowered, Frost said, the decrease “probably would apply to those people who didn’t appeal, too. ... We want it to be uniformly applied.”
