Whitefield took a giant step toward just and equitable land assessment Monday by increasing valuation rates on utility-owned land and borrow pits.
Assessors agent Jim Murphy, using recommendations in the Whitefield Assessment Advisory Committee report issued last February, made some changes, said board of selectmen chairman Steve McCormick. The agent found that two properties in Central Maine Power’s right-of-way were sold to the company at $6000/acre.
At the board’s regular meeting July 25, selectman Frank Ober responded to the figures by saying, “That’s 10 times what we’re charging now.”
Dennis Merrill, who chaired the committee last fall and wrote the report, said he’d been advised by state tax officials that “it’s all right to use current sales” as a measure, but to reduce the 100 percent value by the actual land value set by the state (60 percent). By that standard, the increased value is $3600/acre.
Whitefield previously valued such land, categorized as raw, at $650/acre, whereas in fact it is being used by utilities such as CMP for commercially valuable development.
The board also changed the valuation categories for borrow pits, gravel pits five acres and larger. Pits, a valuable natural resource, are a common feature of Whitefield where large deposits of sand and gravel were left by the last retreating glacier.
The town has seven valuation categories for the excavations, and when the committee was researching the subject, it found inconsistency in the way per-acre rates were applied.
Particularly puzzling was the fact that rear land was being valued higher than the lowest three pit rates, making commercially valuable land seemingly worth less than “regular” land. Values per acre for Maine Gravel’s pits (Crooker), listed on eight map lots, range from $950 to $4113. The lowest per acre value, on the Boynton pit, is $650.
Reviewing borrow pit sales from 2007 to 2010, in towns near Whitefield, the board saw an average per-acre value of $7588. Ober subsequently made a motion to change the town’s gravel pit values to $7500, subject to the same 60 percent reduction based on land values. He thanked Merrill for the committee’s work “in making taxes more equitable.”
The board also signed off on a bonding company release form for the $461,305 contract with Catalano, the company that built the new central fire and rescue station. At the March 2010 town meeting, voters authorized selectmen to borrow not more than $548,144 for that purpose.
The town will contract with Fielding for town office heating oil at $3.55 per gallon.
Several select board members will interview candidates Friday for the part time office assistant position.