Areas similar to Cleveland heights? But without the high taxes (Columbus: apartment complex, rental)
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Hello, I am moving back to Cleveland after a year away. I used to live in Cleveland heights and loved it because it was so diverse and there was lots to do. It was also close to work. Although, I am thinking about going back to the heights, I also wanted a few other options mainly because the taxes are so high even if just renting. I’m not originally from Cleveland and only lived there for 3 years before leaving for a job opportunity so I’m not too familiar with other parts of the city. Are there other areas in Cleveland that are similar to the heights but with lower taxes?
Basically what other areas in Cleveland are similar but wouldn’t owe so much money to the city when I do my taxes each year.
FYI I will be working at the VA and would prefer a less than 25 minute commute but could do longer if needed. Thanks!
Last edited by Clevelandguy88; 04-25-2020 at 02:45 AM..
If it's a big deal, you're gonna want to stay out of Cuyahoga County altogether. Downtown Willoughby in Lake County is nice and interesting. Taxes there are much lower.
But honestly, if you like Cleveland Heights and work basically right there, I'd just do that.
If it's a big deal, you're gonna want to stay out of Cuyahoga County altogether. Downtown Willoughby in Lake County is nice and interesting. Taxes there are much lower.
But honestly, if you like Cleveland Heights and work basically right there, I'd just do that.
Are you going to be renting again? If not, property taxes don't really matter; they're already reflected in rents.
Candidly, I'm not certain what any city or the nation will look like after the COVID-19 epidemic passes over us. How many small businesses that add ambiance to communities will permanently shutter their doors? If you're renting, sticking to a community that you enjoyed and is close to the VA may be wise until you can assess the aftermath a few years hence.
Shockingly, last year the Willoughby-Eastlake school district voted down a school levy in what used to be a upper-tier school district in Lake County. If its schools plunge into a Parma-like financing crisis, I'm not certain what impact that will have on Willoughby, or what it says about the financial stress that perhaps pervades that community, even before the COVID-19 epidemic. It's possible that Willoughby residents voted for the school levy, but it was opposed in Eastlake.
An alternative Lake County community, with among the best recreational assets in northeast Ohio, is Mentor. Look for an apartment complex or other rental option within walking distance of the massive retail complex surrounding Great Lakes Mall in Mentor. Mentor also will be hurt by the COVID-19 epidemic, but it has one of the best tax bases in northeast Ohio, both retail and industrial. This isn't a charming alternative, but you would find anything you would want within walking distance from Garfield Park to bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and a plethora of retail. The Cleveland Clinic is in the process of building a new hospital there, or at least it was before the COVID-19 crisis blew apart its budget.
Unlike in Cleveland Hts., you would be within easy driving distance of beaches (Mentor Headlands, Fairport Harbor), Holden Arboretum (one of the best in the U.S.), natural areas (Mentor Lagoons, Mentor Marsh, Headlands Dunes), and excellent Lake Metroparks, even the North Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks.
Mentor offers easy access to two freeways -- I-90 and Route 2. LakeTran's Dial-a-Ride point-to-point service is not offered in Cuyahoga County, and it provides service to the VA if you are without your car for a period, although the service hours may not match your work hours.
Obviously, what Cleveland Heights offers is easy mass transit options to downtown and close-by access to one of the nation's best cultural centers in University Circle.
You would pay an additional 1.25 percent income tax in both Cleveland Heights and Shaker Hts., as I read the following table, but nothing additionally in Mentor. This tax saving likely wouldn't cover your extra commuting costs, especially if you factor anything for your commuting time.
If you want to avoid an extra income tax, perhaps consider staying in Cleveland and renting downtown, in University Circle or Ohio City (assuming the mass transit options from downtown or Ohio City are acceptable to you; check Google Transit). Do you pay for parking at the VA? If so, living in UC and biking may be both good for your health and your pocketbook.
Lots of Heights ex-pats move North to the shores of Lake Erie in the lake streets of North Collinwood. Great community, diverse, lower taxes, close to things to do, plus the beauty of Lake Erie and neighborhood beach clubs.
To a degree, taxes and the quality of life in a city have a "you get what you pay for" relationship. Schools, parks, general city maintenance, quality of municipal services, etc. all relate to the city's tax base.
Fortunately for heights residents, the school levy failed yesterday.
Right, except for those with children in public schools, or those who may want to sell their houses but find a reduced pool of buyers as those with families avoid communities with failing school districts. Additionally, the pool of sellers may increase significantly as those with children opt for greener pastures and as more astute homeowners decide to get out while the getting is still relatively good.
Use the home value chart here to compare Parma with Cleveland Hts. For a number of years, school levies failed in Parma.
As Lakewood residents clearly value their public schools to a greater extent than in CH and UH, for those with families who seek public school educations, Lakewood would seem greatly preferable to CH and UH.
<<Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District is also seeing similar results, with 52.39% of accounted votes going against the additional tax levy.
On the other hand, Lakewood City School District saw a staggering 76.66% of voters so far say yes to their additional tax levy, while Orange City School District seeing a similar 77.28% approval for their tax levy renewal.>>
The Cleveland Hts.-University Hts. school district likely is among the districts being punished most by state laws allowing local tax revenues to be siphoned away by private schools under the state's voucher program, and by Ohio's reduction of inflation-adjusted funding for public schools.
I wonder if opponents of the CH-UH levy will vote against the Republican politicians, including especially state office holders, who have inflicted such an unfair voucher system on Ohio public schools, or if they are inherently opponents of public education. E.g., parochial and other private schools eligible for vouchers are NOT subject to the same testing standards required of public schools and may be providing worse outcomes than the so-called "failing" public schools, many of which actually have superior educational outcomes, whose students become eligible for vouchers.
<<The school district plead their case to the public by arguing the schools had lost $7 million to the state’s EdChoice voucher program and would be forced to make some difficult decisions if the levy didn’t pass.>>
All Ohio tax levies likely will fair poorly in coming years given the wealth destruction being caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and the inevitably higher interest rates later in this decade as the resulting massive debt increases aggravate an already over-leveraged U.S. economy.
Luckily for it, the Willoughby-Eastlake school district passed its levy and at least for now will avoid following the CH-UH down the rabbit's hole which results from a truly failing public school district.
It will be interesting to watch Zillow.com home values for CH/UH vs. Willoughby over the immediate months ahead, let alone over the next several years. IMO, CH-UH residents unwittingly or not, have opted for the East Cleveland model.
The Zillow CH median home value as of March 2021 is $129,756.
The Zillow Willoughby median home value as of March 2021 is $158,191, and I believe Willoughby home prices have been depressed by last year's levy failure and cuts in the school system's budget/activities. Home value appreciation in adjacent Mentor has been 2 percent higher over the past year, according to Zillow.
Given its proximity to University Circle and downtown Cleveland, IMO property values should appreciate much more in CH and UH than in Willoughby, but that won't happen if service quality, which begins with public schools, is allowed to degenerate.
My bet is that deflated home price appreciation, if not outright depreciation, will cost CH-UH homeowners much more than they will save in property taxes as a result of the levy's failure. And CH and UH have plunged themselves into a vicious cycle if inflation-adjusted housing prices begin to fall, providing a lessened property tax base.
Budget duress for a public school system results in much more than cuts in programs and services. Yes, extracurricular activities may be eliminated or switched to pay-for-play programs, assuming poorer families still will be able to participate. But full-day kindergarten, busing, and latch-key programs may be terminated, greatly disadvantaging working parents who depend on the school system to "baby-sit" their kids.
Budget cuts perhaps more importantly diminish the core functions of a public school system -- education.
Class sizes increase, reducing teacher/student contact time, and putting added stress on teachers, especially the most conscientious as their work load increases as they try to maintain the quality of their work product. Supply shortages may force conscientious teachers to pay out-of-pocket for their classroom supplies.
As the families most interested in public schools leave the school district, the percentage of motivated students in the public schools will decline, reducing much of the satisfaction of teaching for the best teachers, who never signed on to be mere baby-sitters.
Administrative support positions will be eliminated and defunded putting an extra burden on teachers.
Teacher salaries relative to surrounding, better-funded school districts will fall in comparison.
Some experienced teachers will switch school districts, some of which still may be willing to pay more for quality than just hiring inexperienced, less qualified new teachers.
Certain the best new teachers will seek employment in more rewarding environments, perhaps even those paying slightly less compensation in more rural or suburban school districts. IF a school district only can afford to pay for baby-sitters, that's what it will get in many instances.
As the quality of education declines, even for the fewer numbers of motivated students left behind, the siphoning away of local tax dollars to private and parochial schools will accelerate if the Ohio voucher program isn't reformed. The vicious cycle of decline will accelerate rapidly.
All GOOD stuff, right? NOT.
And as the quality of public schools wane, and as home values likely decline, at least adjusted for inflation, and as more wealthy families shun CH and UH as residential choices, other municipal tax bases will wane, and the quality and quantity of other public services will fall, especially in comparison to other cities that maintain more superior public education systems.
You get what you pay for, but you also get what you DON'T pay for (e.g., the current, unnecessary COVID-19 epidemic, compared to countries like South Korea or Germany, due to the gutting of pandemic experts and public health services by the Trump administration).
Median home values for last 10 years: University Hts., Cleveland Hts., Lakewood
As noted in the preceding posts, declining public school quality places an immense burden on housing values. For Cleveland Heights and University Heights the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic likely will also impose downward pressure on local housing prices.
Perhaps there are other factors at work, but I found it shocking to compare median home values for the last 10+ years for University Heights, Cleveland Heights and Lakewood.
According to Zillow.com, in April 2010 the home values for each of the three cities were: University Heights at $145,000 and both Cleveland Heights and Lakewood at $126,000. Scroll over the "Max" time period "Home Value Index" using both CH and UH as comparative cities to Lakewood.
The home value indexes for March 2021 were Lakewood $201,000, University Heights $167,000, and Cleveland Heights $127,000. Home prices were almost unchanged in Cleveland Heights over more than 10 years. Inflation has been over 18 percent during this time period.
There are other factors besides public school quality influencing these relative home value performances, especially as UH and CH share the same public schools, but note that home values in both UH and CH have lost value on an inflation-adjusted basis since April 2010, according to Zillow.com. Home values in Lakewood are up over 40 percent adjusted for inflation.
Thinking as a contrarian, IF UH and CH residents get their acts together and work to improve their public schools, or if Ohio reforms its deeply flawed Republican voucher system to return local tax dollars to public schools, UH and CH property values may do very well in the years ahead. Reality, however, is barring the overturning of Republican political control of Ohio, a difficult task especially given the state's Republican gerrymander, or a change in the willingness of CH/UH residents to support school levies, further declines in UH/CH home values adjusted for inflation would seem inevitable IMO.
Support for tax levies anywhere in the immediate years ahead will be very problematic given the ongoing wealth destruction, savings depletion, obliteration of small businesses, state and local government financial crises, and immense expansion of federal debt and unfunded liabilities, as well as of the Federal Reserve balance sheet. What will be the impact on Greater University Circle of the financial impact of the COVID-19 Great Recession/Depression on the area's great cultural institutions and medical institutions, as well as Case Western Reserve.
Inevitably, the endowments of both the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Orchestra have been slammed, but perhaps not as much as might have been expected IF investment management was as good as at many hedge funds and the better university endowments.
The financial pain at University Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic likely are much more problematic, especially if Congress doesn't increase further its financial support for hospitals.
University Hospital already has cut hours and imposed a pay cut of 20 percent for 10 weeks for 4,100 workers not involved in patient care. These cutbacks certainly will impact residential income tax receipts in UH and CH.
U.S. public universities face an uncertain future, and the impact may be even worse for more expensive private universities, especially those that are not exceptionally well endowed such as Case Western.
Federal, state and local governments haven't even begun to reconcile their financial realities with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine plans to announce his proposals in the near future, and his initial comments suggest spending cuts of about 20 percent with no offsetting tax increases, posing an even more perilous future for Ohio's local governments, school systems, and universities. Ohio's once stellar public library system likely will be trashed, given the Republican value system.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library furloughed most of its employees and imposed pay cuts on remaining employees two weeks ago.
Greater Cleveland's local governments and agencies have not implemented similarly Draconian cutbacks, apparently anticipating a federal bailout, unless I've missed something. Parma has cut positions. Ohio's municipalities rely heavily on income taxes to support their budgets making the current economic collapse especially troublesome.
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Impact of budget cuts on public school system
