Property taxes (Wilkinsburg, Penn: incomes, living in, law)

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Um, because that is exactly what you are doing when you complain about Pittsburgh's property tax rates..

Brain, I cannot keep schooling you in this. You are too thick to get through to. You don't understand growth and return on investment. You don't have the tools. You will stop at nothing to try and convince everyone the taxes in our region are great and it is dirt cheap to live here! All is perfect. Who cares if there is no grocery store in downtown? Why think about that? All new people to Pittsburgh, move to the city. All is perfect. You can shop at the Strip at lunch time and it will be great! Oh and the city schools are the best in the world!!! Public transportation is the best in the country. We live in the best place with no faults at all.

Your posts are hilarious! Keep them coming. I love it, but do feel sorry for the new people that really feel all is perfect here and may move to an area that isn't all that great. Lawrenceville isn't a perfect place and still has plenty of crime and issues. East Liberty isn't some huge success story right now. There is still a ton of crime there. Maybe someday it will be, but not yet, as much as you try and get new people to live there.

Rah, rah, rah. Excellent! Don't you ever get tired of this silliness?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by squarian

But where it really might bite are places like Wilkinsburg and Woodland Hills, which may have seen significant appreciation in parts of the district (Regent Sq, Edgewood) while the cumulative, total value has declined. Leading, of course, to higher rates on higher assessments for those particular parts.

Despite living in the Wilkinsburg part of Regent Square, I'm not particularly worried. This is a complex topic, but I think it is quite likely that the total tax base in Wilkinsburg has gone up, despite depreciation in some parts. That's because the parts that appreciated were already a disproportionate share of the tax base as of 2002--in other words, on a weighted basis, the appreciation in places like Regent Square have a lot more affect on the total than the depreciation in the places that were already cheap.

Incidentally, this is somewhat confirmed by the fact that the Census/ACS thinks the median value in Wilkinsburg has increased, as do some of the private indices.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Lobick

You could argue that it is the failure to frequently reassess that causes this behavior. Owners don't want to draw attention to their properties and trigger a reassessment. Were they more frequent, I think the chances of an accurate assessment of the property's value go up, regardless of an additional coat of paint or new landscaping.

Even if they assessed all the time, it really doesn't matter. If a landlord has a place that is run down and next door is the same building that is in perfect condition, who is going to pay more in taxes?

Maybe they could tax on square feet? Imagine all the huge places in bad parts of the Northside or East Liberty getting smacked with some huge tax bill? Don't think that would work either.

It isn't some easy problem to fix. I suspect if schools are using property taxes instead of income as their base, properties will always be more run down as a result of it. If they taxed on something other than property, then the weights would be lifted and people would want to make things much nicer. Can that be done? Seems it cannot.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by squarian

True, but the social-cultural cost of such sorting, as fixed- or middle-income people are forced out of their homes to be replaced by wealthier people who can afford the higher taxes, is a steady erosion of the mixed-neighborhood profile, well-beloved of new urbanists.

Some of that may happen, but there will be countervailing effects. For example, if I am right about the higher-value/higher-appreciation parts of Wilkinsburg basically funding a tax rate cut for the rest of the Wilkinsburg, that's actually going to help people keep their homes while also attracting new residents/investors.

Basically, as long as appreciation is as high or higher on the higher-value places as the lower-value places (the Regent Square in Wilkinsburg scenario), people living in, or interested in living in, the lower-value places are going to benefit from reassessments. It is only when the lower-value places start having higher appreciation than the higher-value places--meaning prices are starting to catch up/converge--that reassessments can become somewhat problematic.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Yea I wonder how many neighborhoods would see a significant beautification bump in the aesthetics of the homes if not for the countys abnormally high property tax rates.

Just an aside, but this is a fundamental problem with any property tax scheme that is mostly a tax on the value of improvements to the land (it disincentizes improvements). If you redirect some or all of that tax on improvements to a tax on land value itself, you can moderate or even flip those incentives around.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by squarian

This is why I think Wettick and other champions of Allegheny Co's solitaire reassessment have erred - political structural reform should go hand in hand with this major economic readjustment.

It is not Wettick's fault, it is the PA Constitution's fault (as interpreted by the PA Supreme Court). In a nutshell, as interpreted the PA Constitution requires rigorously fair taxation rates, but little in the way of efficacy in structure, or fairness in funding, when it comes to providing government services (including education).

There is an obvious solution, if only our political structure made it possible. Have regular FMV reassessments, by all means. But phase in significant assessment increases (say, over 10%) over a given period (say, in 10% increments over ten years).

That seems like a good idea to me.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

but you could at least not mislead people that they should extend themselves like they do in many places when they buy a home. Cut way back in Pittsburgh due to the huge property taxes.

First, you are the one hustling get-rich-quick housing schemes.

Second, I realize you have admitted you don't actually bother reading my posts before pretending you understand their content. But for the record, about a bazillion times I have advised people that they should stick to Pittsburgh norms when it comes to the ratio between their income and the price of their house, in part because of our taxation rates. That is actually the obvious conclusion from what I have noted on this subject--our property taxes as a percentage of income are only middling, which is precisely because we spend less on houses as a ratio of income.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Don't you ever get tired of this silliness?

That's the question.

Curtis, I've come around a little bit on you, honestly. I think there's potentially a lot that you could constructively add to many of these discussions but your posts are ...frustrating.

For whatever reason, you do not demonstrate the ability to express yourself clearly and in a manner that would allow people to take your thoughts seriously on many topics and that's a shame.

The constant bolstering of your own "credentials" on topics and the abusive use of "silly" and "schooling" and "thick" and terms like that and your constant utilization of straw-men and absolutes do very little to help your arguments and think frankly hurt the perception that you're looking for.

I don't know Brian personally, but I and everybody else have read enough of his posts to come to know him as an educated, thoughtful individual, whether you agree or disagree with the point he's making. When you respond to his arguments with what appears to me, to be an attempt to bully a child or simpleton, it comes off as disingenuous at best, and does little to burnish the sometime valid points you're attempting to advance.

I'll admit, in the past I've had the thought that you were a "character", perhaps an art project by some post modern bored hipster, looking to give brutish opinions a bad face but I come to realize that''s not the case. At times, I think you're frustrated by the fact that the seemingly self-evident opinions that you have aren't universally shared or exalted. I beg of you though to not let those frustrations get the better of you. Think it through, be more measured and less emotional and throw away the attempts at denigration of the others ability to make cogent arguments.

I do think you've much to offer.

Take it, or not, FWIW.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Lobick

You could argue that it is the failure to frequently reassess that causes this behavior.

Yep--failing to reassess frequently tends to punish improvements of all sorts (note permits is another way improvements can end up being found out). So once again, he is actually making the case for more frequent reassessments.

[squarian]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

It is only when the lower-value places start having higher appreciation than the higher-value places--meaning prices are starting to catch up/converge--that reassessments can become somewhat problematic.

From an individual perspective, yes. More than a few of my neighbors, living on middling and inelastic incomes, are concerned by the potential result. Quite a few of them are very active in their community, both Regent Square and Wilkinsburg. Their loss would be the community's loss, and one for which a marginal readjustment to the Wilkinsburg incomer calculus cannot compensate. A very significant economic change of this sort in the community will indeed be problematic in cultural-social terms.

Of course, as I said above, there is an obvious solution, if only our political institutions were capable of solutions.