stand flatting Mee La this meeting March 5 2024 posted on the buet board of bur Hall addition copy of notice is has been available to the public and going to file in the office of the BR please for our councilwoman Englehart here Council here councilman L here council president here councilman Parker here Council vice president Rosetti we know you're there and mayor Carol I am here um the first item on the agenda is work session 2024 budget um Bill is having a personal a personal uh uh family emergency um he's offering to come online with him right now texting him and I just think I think it's better if he's here in person on Monday night and we just move his portion of this work session to Monday that also gives all of you a chance to go and see him I'm going to ask again if you have issues with the budget to go and Dr the bill um so you'll have more time uh if we just postpone we just deal with Ed C on our tax assessor because I don't think um him talking from the hospital emergency room is really conducive to um does he want to well you know he might want to but family M may not want him to um not that important so right so um I think what we're going to do tonight tonight is um have Ed answer all our questions your questions um and then we're going to set 5:30 start time on Monday night to do the work session on the budget bill has texted me that he is available at that time early um and uh and then we'll move on to this very late agenda but there's important stuff on here so to join us closer Ed thank you for coming tonight really appreciate itn't noce thank you thank you really um so I'm just gonna open it up directly to questions to the council because um but I am going to ask you to dump down your answers and dumb as you can be and I know that's not real dumb Bill our Edge but try try and be dumb okay so so I'm GNA start with the council president any question for for our tax assessment yeah sure thank you very much m c for coming here tonight um so I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna sound kind of dumb in my questions right purposely uh this is how I like to ask so that I understand it we all kind of get it um I just had a couple questions for you as our assessor um as far as the property values how much of an increase would you say compared to last year are we still property values increasing are they flat like what what are we looking at what's going on approach it's [Music] fine um this spreadsheet is is a spreadsheet of comparing the 24 assessments to the 23 assessments not only by the total but by property class and when if I if I speak about class one it's vacant land which you'll see on your first uh left side of your column of a spreadsheet class two is residentials class 3A are which we don't have any Just for information if we had Farmland assessments it would be The Farmhouse and 3B would the Farmland commercials um it says 4A which is retail uh offices um type facilities restaurants uh class 4B are the industrial uh that we have um off of Highway 12 that would be the warehouse could be a warehouse or a manufacturing and class 4C are the uh apartment buildings the the number of L is how many line items we have of each type in the in the in the burrow vacant land 30 res IAL 856 we have 223 4 a commercial uh two warehouses and a uh and apartments now the apartments that are there are are their Garden Apartments not the individual two families so this analysis basically you can see that our land assessment in uh vac land that was now at 3 Milli 338,000 uh last year was at 3,278 600 was a difference of 59,800 with a 1.82 increase uh the Residential Properties are typically residentials are single families two families three families are considered as from an Assessor's point a residential property and four families anything above four is a is a is then goes into the class 4 C uh so this this year our residentials are assessed to 291,413 ,300 last year there were 268 m84 500 they increased by 23, 144,00 and it was an 8.63 uh% increase from 23 to 24 uh commercially the 4A which is 223 properties is now assessed to 220 mil 22,800 uh um last year it was 189 milion 624 300 it was a 20, 596 th500 increase and it's 10.86% so the res the ret retail and offices went up higher than the residentials the warehouse is uh 2024 2,62 uh the 20 in 2024 2023 it's 1, 95600 with $15,900 increase which is 5.41% and the apartments which are now 72 million 57,200 last year there were 68 68 m085 900 increases 4,484 300 with 6.59% below that you can see that the if you add all those numbers up the old average increase of the commercials was 9.7 and the average increase of the residentials were 8.63 um did want to mention that the commercial the apartment buildings have been uh for new members of the governing body have been I've been increasing them at 10% pretty much every year for the past 10 years due to this uh the increase in in value for the apartments this year they received an average of 6.53 some received uh in this like seven seven and a quarter seven and a half and and one one of them uh was about 6% um the overall increase in the town which you can see in the totals we have 112 1,121 properties the overall value of the town is 579,000 in 2024 in 2023 it was 531 mil 29400 with a 48 m391 300 increase which is 99.11% increase overall in our ratables and if you look down at the bottom you'll see the comparison of properties for I do I did as a a residential the residentials there's this your 856 properties the total assessment um is 29,200 291 mil 229300 in 2024 the average uh ass value is 340,000 221 if you look at the number below I'll go right to the answer the there's uh four four less properties and the average assessment is 34,653 so the values in town both residentially and commercially have increased from 23 to 24 residential um the class two pretend I'm I'm a firsttime home buyer in plumton I bought it let's say bought it for 300 I'm looking then at the value now wow look at that went up does that translate into a tax increase even like my the value went up in my home and across the boards that's what happened but what does that means for my taxes all because of all the properties increasing the the result is is that everyone's taxes are going to go up they're all going to increase uh so it would it would depend it would depend how much would be dependent upon what the county the schools and the municipality tax rate is so it how much it's actually going to go up I couldn't tell you until they struck the rates you know regarding that which is probably going to be a you would know better than I in in by June of of this year because the tax bills go out sometime in the middle of July and uh doing payable August 1st with a 10day grace period so another question about commercials commercial properties so how long you've been the intercessor for fun 1992 since 92 so I don't know if you have a chart handy but obviously know this but um what have you seen happen with the commercial the property value as far as the numbers are we we're not going up I know that for a fact we have empty stores but is it even you know what I know we're comparing 1992 through the years but what have you seen happen with the where we're getting our tax dollars from has there been a pattern with the commercial zones uh I didn't bring that with me but up till a couple years AG go the commercial Market was was was not appreciating at nearly the rate you know the residentials were um I think that the in the in the past two years um we've seen the commercial Market um increase more and more last year was a fairly aggressive increase and this year I believe you know we did the 9.7 is a pretty pretty aggressive increase um I'm chasing chasing the market in in my assessments and the answer to your question is the there are a lot of people that are speculating that are coming into Flemington to buy and something that I thought might be worth 700,000 is now selling for 850 something I thought was you know 800,000 is now selling for close to a million you know it's just the the prices have have increased so it's not always the rent that's collected or the issue of vacency if there's a few stores it's I I believe that you know commercial developers would like to come in and buy and and uh they believe that Flemington my opinion they believe that Flemington is up and coming and and they' like to get into at the the ground floor instead of the instead of waiting two or three years from now or four years and the same with I think the residential also now is picked up because the people coming in I speak to the younger couple that you mentioned before and they're anticipating a change in the commercial Market where you know that at some point in time they'll go downtown and walk this streets and have dinner and you know have their friends over for the weekend and go downtown and have dinner and you know go have a you know an ice cream or paper walk through town which is what Flemington used to be and Flemington with that kind of town and I think it's I think everyone is anticipating not everyone most everyone is anticipating have to come back so I uh another quick question and then if anybody else uh as far as so you mentioned like the the um empty stores well we did have some come in yes we did did you did you see in your assessment like that was pretty obvious that shift like you're talking about it sounds like you're talking about a trend in that direction but we had um I don't know I don't know how many I don't know if that's an FCP thing how many businesses came in um that these things were empty I don't know if you any I mean you know over there Manhattan Bagel that where they're at was bacon on and off and they seem to be doing very well and and there's the storefronts are are filling up more I think the the again I think you know the more development that is in at on the Main Street and and I think I'm hoping that the um it'll become contagious and people will start you know redeveloping their build you know um remodeling or renovating their their buildings and and uh you know bringing in more tenant you know it's building were vacant 10 years ago you high vacancies are now filled up so yeah when you talk about like that was empty for a number of months um yeah there was obviously somebody had to be paying those taxes right but that's better when there's a business in like what well to answer your question yes because I had attorneys filing tax appeals saying they wanted a reduction because they didn't have any tenants in there and they wanted the assessment lowered so after you have a you know right Aid I had a a Friday was was vacant for years and now they have a bank coming in supposedly to fill it and and and that property has sold at a very high number around $250 a square foot and U you know that that's something that you know I was happy to see that that was sitting there vac you know very for a long time and uh now we have a you know Bank should be hopefully very successful and and then next to it which you already know you have the the Redevelopment of the spice Factory so um and that's another thing you know that people are looking at is I get a lot of questions from developers and realators and you know what the activity is you know what's going on with the Agway property what's going on with the you know the different property what's what's going to happen on on Main Street down by the railroad tracks with the development over there had approval for don't to was around 86 86 thank you I 86 you know Town HS so there's and again that's something when that develops will be a real plus because those people that are going to buy in there want want the downtown they want a downtown that they can walk to and and you know have a cup of coffee or have beat or you know so that that'll change that whole area of town as well we had a a building on um on mine Street the corner of mine and uh it was an a bacon building for years um and now it's a salon and they did a beautiful job of renovating that salon and then there's a nice renovated apartment on the second floor so a lot of that those things are happening in now I have one last question I'm sorry to hog here um so the the top 10 tax we all we get from you every year when I looked at um 2022 2023 2024 consistently the top four Flemington Apartments LLC is that Prospect Hills yes Bill uh builtmore realy company NE apartment Flemington South LLC apartment in fidelco okay and then hun in shop exent so consistently over these past few years um and I previous to that I didn't get that but I it's obviously is a pattern here the top earners taxpayers I should say are four apartment complexes and then you get to a commercial area um has that always been or is that no because I been 10 years ago it wasn't now the apartments have moved up to to the top you know four of them have moved up to the sou and the other three there's other three three more other Garden Apartments that will move closer as time goes on um it's just a desire for apartments in in the area and uh like I said I've been increasing those assessments for 10% when the town was made you only increasing it three or four you know over the years and and it's uh they've now risen to the top of the chart that you're talking about that was it thank you TR yeah um these different classes of the land are they taxed differently in anyway or they all like the same for all of them uniform tax code stands for all the different property classes yeah well they're all each property is assessed um based on the the market conditions but the tax rates is the same for everyone except for the businesses they do have a special district one and a special district two that they collect I don't really call it a tax I call it more of a fee that money is collected and and paid only by the business owners for for the group that runs the business activities for the businesses and promoting their their businesses so it's not really a tax it's a it's money coming in that are paid by the businesses the tax collector Rebecca collects this I believe she she disperses it quarterly I'm not quite sure um to the business uh group and then they use that money to operate in promoting business activity in the town so that's but that's why their tax rate is that they pay is is higher than everyone else they well to be clear C New Jersey why our constitution has a uniform ta everybody has to tax the same only the legislature can change that so the legislature has passed legislation to give um disabled 100% disabled vs um uh forgiveness and other property taxes and um seniors can get a tax freeze but the tax rate is the same for everybody so the tax rate is the same for the businesses but then they have an additional tax it's not that the tax rate's higher they have their tax rate and then their tax top of that any other questions that's Parker can you just kind of go over because I think it was you did this with me it was pretty educational first everybody on how the percentage is how it's taxed it's like 1.4% or something like that I can't remember alls sorry um when we were talking about businesses and how theirs bra over how that was done how they were assessed talking about SCP no no he did something do you remember this there was a we were talking about we were asking the question of what is the tax um percentage on businesses you kind of went over that with us I can pull it up I think probably well if if it has to do with the the tax rate everyone they all pay every all commercial businesses pay the same tax rate except for the special business tax that that that rate it's 15 or it depends on the area if it's down 14% it's 15 I think it's 15% here and in and then out on the highway it's l it's 14 14 cents so it's 14 cents and 15 on the highway so it that 14 and 15 cents that the mayor said is added to our present tax rate and that's how they know but the the commercial properties are are assessed the same way as the residential based on market value it's the interpretation my my interpretation or opinion on market value so and it's based on the sales activity I look at the sales that they taken businesses and residential both residential and and and Commercial the I look at the sales and try to estimate what these these uh businesses or homes you know would sell for um I also look at the listings I talk to realators I talk to real estate appraisers um just try to figure out where where these assessments are are going um you know we have a lot of things that you know that have changed like Country Griddle for example I had it I'll give you simple example how to assess as a restaurant so what I did when I assessed country gdle I I looked at sales of what I believe to be comparable restaurant sales that sold M and I was assessing it probably in about a million five somewhere in that area and it sold for over $3 million and I I kind of fell fell off my chair I you know and what ended up happening was firm from New York bought it decided to knock it down they had a lease already in place for um the dental and the urgent care or the after care that they have there they already had a agreement and they were going to move into this space and Pi so much space and then the firm from New York knocked it basically knocked the building down and you know redeveloped it and U and they already had their leases in place so what's happening is that these you see the what's there now um that that combination of the dental and the and the healthc care you'll see it in other towns you'll see it in W Chung you'll see it in mamas counties you'll see it all over there's opening these facilities and they have an agreement with this tenant ahead of time that they're going to pay X number of dollars for these for you know for this space that's in there so basically it was a land sale but around the corner from that which makes it difficult where The Toy Kingdom was that sold that land sold for $775,000 and it's right around the corner so I'm sitting there say wait a minute it's it's a stone St I can throw a baseball from one to the other it's over is that a guar $2.2 million different I hit the I have to stand in the backyard and uh it it it it was just you know it's it's kind of understandable if they already had two leases they needed that property really bad so they were willing to pay the money for it guess that's just that's just Fire's game here's my question my other follow my other followup question so how often are residential assess tax taxes assess because I know like in most insurance let me to as well is that someone there's like a card that sent that says that we want to walk to your house we're walking around your house to see if basically see if you done anything different yeah and so but if they're not inside the house then you kind of don't know what's going on so how do they do how often is that done and if you can't get the full value besides just walking around the house how do you come up with the assessment is that by looking at sales and um sales in the in the neighborhood or last sales or how's that I know it's a comparable but I also know there's an assessment um me this time almost of the year in uh March and April uh we have to submit a a reassessment application to the county tax board and the division of taxation which requesting to do a reassessment so we do every year and and the requirement is that we have to inspect inspect only inspect 20% of the homes or properties I should say property not homes each year so at the end of five years we've been to every property the what we when we do the reassessment and we we reassess everyone 100% so everyone's assessments changes but the the inspections that are that that we do in our office we send out a letter to whatever area that we're going to inspect that year and indicate that we we'll be out to do an inspection of your property within the next few months um and when we go out to inspect we we take with us a card or a sticker that is at no one's home we first what we do is we come to the door knock on the front door and if someone does not answer we put a sticker on the front door to call myself or or Nicole she does inspections with me and with our cell phone number and they to call us back so we could schedule an appointment after that I walk around that the home provided it's not fenced if it's fenced in them we don't go in but if there's no fence I'll walk around to look to see if the configuration of the home is the same that we have have on the on our sketch and start to look at the information and look at the home from the exterior um the that's about as far as we can go I can't I can't look in Windows but you also do you also go by anything that they fil for like permit or anything like that is that assessed as well yeah get that but if but if someone answers the door and it's a child or young adult that I believe is under the age of I usually like to think 20 at least um I they'll open the door and I'll talk to them and hand them my card and and or Nicole will as well and person you know to have your parents call me and the funny thing is when when I do that I look in I can sign of see what the H look like and then I I walk away but the uh we don't go in unless you know I prefer it's an adult being there um the question you have is a very very good question uh building permits yes we we the with building permits uh we follow up on building permits we do have a little bit of I have a little issue with building permits and it started with uh Governor uh Christie and it carried over to our present Governor um they changed the the rules and regulations for building permits used to have a building permit no matter what you done pretty much on whatever you did to your home you need a building had needed a new roof take out a building permit if you wanted to put in new sighting you would have a new have to get a building permit for bathroom Renovations and Etc etc etc well now you can renovate your home without taking out a building permit you can put a new siding new windows and new roofs well now you just change the whole complexion of your home on the outside then you can go inside and put in new kitchen cabinets or new bathroom cabinets U and Saks Floor Covering can't do electrical you can't do plumbing because that still requires a permit but you now just again Chang the complexion of the inside of your home um you can put Floor Covering down without having put it so I it just it goes on so a lot of the things that are being done by homeowners legally I can't say and and I'm not able to follow up on those because of a the law so if everybody's listening I subscribe to multiple lists I'm a realator that doesn't practice so I I have all the listings sales and photographs and I keep all this in my office and I sit there and I look at it say this home sold three years ago I'll go back to three years of three years ago to a list to see what the home look like compared to what it looks like today so I go back and forth reading the Ling I can go back back into the 90s to to look at listings at what a home looked like you know and someone will say to me oh we didn't renovated and I'll go back to the last H and see if they're renovated so I I kind of just quietly look at it and then when I'm looking at the Assessments in the homes I can kind of have an idea what it is and another thing that kind of you I like doing field work that's like my favorite thing to do is to go and walk around and inspections and be out uh outside I find that property owners in neighborhoods are are good source um if someone's home and we start to talk and all of a sudden someone will say U I think my assessment's you know too high I said why why do you think it's too high they'll say well that house over there renovated their kitchens and their bathrooms and all this I didn't do anything the same as me oh [Music] really so if you take the notebook with not out of the m just because you're just asking a question so that happens there's just different things and then I can see when I drive around trucks renovating you know I can I can see what people do would you as well um so is it do I pick up everything no I can't admit that but you know I can't see what someone does to their basement it's just impossible and in a kitchen I can't see because unless they let me in so Berets are no longer like something that you can go by anymore well I I can't for certain things because if they do the major renovation to their kitchen and they start changing electric plumbing and start what they do uh you know they should be taking a permit out for for finished basement um that's something that needs a per anything in the stup district they actually still do have to file even you know if they change the color you're changing the windows um you know your interior your that's the thing you can you can trigger it from that you can see theide yeah you can get your approval and it stays time too anything else coun no that's it okay so couple questions so you're were talking about the senior tax free no I was oh okay okay so there's a senior tax free and the veterans tax free now legl by the legislature so the 2024 summary which we got last week so there shows on that there senior there's 25 senior citizens right so are we we Frozen their out okay then you have you have to be low income okay be over 65 low income you have to file with state of New Jersey Court okay and then they do it and then it get sent you okay he has nothing to do with it it's the same thing with veterans who are disabled if they don't apply they don't get it so they don't do it like in New York state where it's just they just do it look at your age and no just because you're a senior doesn't mean you get the tax you have to be in New Jersey in certain in in New Jersey you have to be in a certain okay there you go okay so that that answers that answers the big question for that um so we also have one abatement or one yeah one dwelling abatement on New York Avenue so on the dwelling abatements we've got the one like is there a way for us to um assess how many of that there could be and I actually was able to pull out the actual application um online Okay so the actual I don't think we want to do it because the address is redacted but we have this one block this one lot that was 215 2024 are there how many of those a year do we get not a lot no no they uh no not at all um that's for 25,000 maximum yeah for five years the uh we had more on the commercial properties okay we had one on uy Rock okay uh and uh some of the proper are Street uh was a doctor's office that had one um we had probably six or seven or eight that have expired and then they they go become uh fully assessed um we haven't had any in the past couple of years we so this was our our um I think it's mostly because people don't know about burer I think and our C hasn't 27 of our tax exemptions hasn't there most people don't know that read our code so article for our last newsletter never got out um the the I'm sorry properties the newal property owners are going to start to like I men before they they start to renovate buildings and even to see more of that a pro program utilized you know for the for the Redevelopment of some of those properties um and I again I I don't know maybe because I'm just guessing you know people are if if you're renovating your home and this has nothing to do is I it has to do with everybody in the world almost you're renovating your home you really would like to do it quietly and just have it renovated so nobody knows and you know it's not you know if you start getting an abatement then it becomes public but then comes out that you now have abatement I think you know the people like privacy and I think that's another reason why they don't use the program right now they might use it which if if again my opinion if it was more than 25,000 if they used it it was something like 50 or 100,000 you know say 50,000 which is still considerable amount you know you might see more people use it and you're willing to have their home and and a batement program because you know just to renovate a kitchen isn't going to you know if you really taking it down over $50,000 you know by the time you if you goed the kitchen and redid it in Cabinetry and sinks and everything else is going to cost you close to 50 Grand and then you go to the bathrooms 25 so I think my other questions really for PR discussion it's really want to understand what some of the abatements were you were able to get through all of the um had a lot of questions about that but out to explain that um well mostly my office deals with u exemptions like veteran exemption veteran veteran is disabled and it's approved by the the uh VA um I receive a letter that shows that they're 100% disabled they're then they become 100% tax exempt they home and then and then you have senior and veterans that uh came out of service uh $250 uh tax exemption or deduction of their taxes those are the kind of things that I deal with the and the uh we're seeing more and more of those because one the restrictions on the on the 100% disabled V veteran they they never took into consideration prior the mental aspects of the of the disability only the physical so as a result of that a lot of the veterans were coming up 80% disabled 85% disabled and you have to be 100 so I couldn't approve it and now with they throw the if included the mental aspect of it now it's they're approving more of the best so since 20 2011 now can go back to your service and you can get your 100% disability even postmortem have we had anybody come doing that way are we seeing any of that my dad is one of those that's why I know was able to get back 38 years for being 100% so in New Jersey again you have to you cannot go backwards unless the governing body passes a local Municipal governing body State can't make anybody go backwards only the local Department go backwards and agree to pay back all that money try to find one SCH to do that okay because it's incumbent on the veteran no but but I'm saying that that the one so so going back postmortem so the Widow of the year that the gentleman or a woman dies I guess they could go and they could say okay well my husband was 100% disabled um for many years but for this so for this year I'm now going to apply to the state of New Jersey and then it's going to come down down to us they've been approved and then those people so I'm trying like I know that there are people in my neighborhood that I speak to that fall under that only the state can approve 100% to same status no I'm talking from the VA and that's where it comes down from P out the state doesn't the state really has nothing for a disabled I mean we may do it here in New Jersey but that's really managed by five thought that's veterans no they would never let a state make that decision this I'm talking about for local for to pay your property taxes the state has to make DEC okay so then they would hand that off they would hand off their letter from the Veterans Affairs to the state and the state declares it and and then they can apply they apply in the state and then the state sends it where I'm going with this is I'm trying looking at the population just the people that are older in our world versus the younger people and knowing that there are some people in that 70 to 80 sweet spot where we might might be encountering them this if they know about it because there's a lot of activity around it um and then what was my last question um it came from something that Tony said um no actually so the tax code when we're saying the municipality so the municipality has the ability to put pass ordinances regarding batement we have the ability to pass ordinances as long as it follows state law and we don't ourselves in the position of being sued we have some we have some leeway there and maybe that's a question for my colle though but we have an entire code nobody reads it but I did that talks about taxes and exemptions and the the abatement is is a is allowed by the state of New Jersey under the States laws no municipality can create their own tax code we have a constitutional uni for tax so whatever we do the legislature has to have state enabling laws behind it okay we can't just do something we can't create our own senior frees we can't create a different rate for seniors we can't create a rate for people who don't have kids in school we're not allowed to do any of that only the legislature can create it and then certain things like for instance the FCPS business tax we chose to adopt it but they enabled it in state law just like enabled the abatement in state law we can't just pH okay okay so I can take it and deep in there to see many different types of abatement programs there different types of pilot programs all of these are as the mayor said that the state has municipality would have to get approved to to do that but you know those are something that are programs that that help um you see we never had many towns except for the places like maybe theic New Brunswick Etc that used pilot programs and now we're seeing more and more pilot programs in the state of New Jersey uh in more coming out this way into hunon and Somerset counties and and your so that's something that um a lot of towns are um gravitating to for large commercial projects you know someone's coming in and putting [Music] in 200 50 unit apartment building you know they'll give them a pilot program and what the pilot program does is that it basically that I understand okay it's a benefit to the town you know over a 30-year period and then and then it goes to Ador tax regular taxation at the year um but that's U all those programs as the mayor said have to be set up byov by the state consider the last question so so for when we start looking at licenses for plumbing and electrical that we start changing things around different parts of the building or own are you able to see because I know that we have them here airb BS or vbos are you able to see anything that would indicate it we may not like this building is going through um some sort of renovation we're seeing a lot of electric change when you're looking at those applications as licenses to do the work you are there anything that you just have seen that might be triggering that it is that type or that unit is being used for that purpose shortterm and longterm poliy yeah it would only be if if if if the you know depending like for example if someone was setting up their assumed in some cases that somebody set up their basement as Airbnb or um but the the um you know I can't really tell if it's part of the home itself because if if a home is a three-bedroom Colonial and you know they're they're making it a Airbnb and renting out a room on they don't have they don't have it set up as an Airbnb like sometimes you go into we had a place the property on Main Street that had um uh rooms that you could rent for you know the people would come in for the weekend but when they went in there it was you knew that it was an Airbnb because of all the safe the issues all the things that they had in in this in the hall the signs the the you know the the way the tables were set up in in the kitchens and or excuse me the dining rooms for people to eat um but not all of them are you know you know not everybody what I'm trying to say is one of the obvious things beside the electrical is if you're looking how the home is laid out you know you look most people don't have their dining room table sitting there with silverware and yeah and plates and and and set up ready to eat you know for every you know in the middle of the afternoon or in the morning so it's you know you can probably detect just by doing the inspection and trying to see if there was if it was but I haven't come across any you know to B to answer your question and maybe because they just won't let me in airbnbs but a lot of Airbnb just don't operate that way right I mean it's just you get the key to the house or key to the apartment and you're on your own they don't try to do anything like a VB type right but but and but it's advertising B&B and the bottom line is that would be very hard to detect because they don't always have things laid out they may have things locked but they don't have things laid out you just go in and the house is yours or the apartment's yours or whatever is yours so it I would just think that be I think it has anything to do with electrical or Plumbing or anything like that other than I don't know that you can because going back to next point it's really it would be like I use my house and advertise it as an Airbnb I wouldn't be changing anything I wouldn't be adding more Plumbing I wouldn't be adding more electrical I wouldn't be doing anything like that because it wouldn't be necessary to do that um you know I give them a key and they go into the house and they do whatever they want um which we expected but the bottom line is that would be very hard to detect they're not adding on to anything most air airbnbs ORS or whatever they don't they don't do anything different to their house they may get different dinner wear or whatever the case may be and lock that up but other than that it's it's business as usual I guess my question follow to that if you don't mind does that really affect the assessment of the house whether it's being as a thebo or or Airbnb at least in your calculation so it doesn't really matter no there is there is a tax and I don't have it right we're gon introducing that next yeah yeah that's what I'm saying it has really nothing to do with the assessment issue but there are local make sure that's all I'm doing your question another way is that if if if you were decided to to move and and keep and keep your home here in Flemington rent it out it wouldn't change the value right because you're renting it out and the same thing with the air Airbnb is that even if it was there really wouldn't change the value because as you said the home is still the same and mentioned everything is right place so it it's not doesn't really uh I don't look at it uh differently you know than as if as compared to other homes in the in the area or neighborhood okay if the local um municipality did pass some sort of um ordinance related to airb vbo similar to other municipalities around the state that still wouldn't affect the um assessment at all as a quasi business I just like as a single family well single to fourx let's say in the in the class two um no because if it was a two family three family or four family i' assess it asn't two family so at this point no I don't think it really change and and how I look at those un type two which is really popular we didn't talk about that multifamilies are po they're very desirable in town and they s for quite a bit um so I would be using those sales to to do you know to to look at the airbnbs if they were two be three B because um you know and that's how I value them by looking at the sale price yeah um uh Tony and Trent and Adrian kind of touched on some of some of mine already so thank you for those um I think I'll start with kind of along the same lines of just rentals um but U I'm thinking more of the larger rental complexes with my question here you had mentioned during your been that um and you had mentioned this last it had been mentioned last year as well as you as you stated that uh you've been increasing the values of the large complex Apartments um regularly over the last few years um uh each year that that you've been doing that does that does your assessment relate to at all or do you take into account at all when you're doing those assessments yearly um rent increases on the on the tenants like does does the rent um if if the rent goes up $100 um from last year to this year on one of the large um complexes per month this is as a round numbers as an example does that affect the assessment at all Yes uh what what I do is I um I send out income and expense statements uh to apartment owners as well as you commercial other commercial properties and the the information that comes back to me sometimes I get it in in in gross numbers you know the what their annual rent is for for X number of Apartments sometimes I get a rent roll you know where I'm able to see what each rent is um and you know I I use that information to analyze what what the apartments are uh renting for because if you add up all your rent R which is the gross rent um you've already taken into um considered the vacancy factor and sometimes they give me the vacancy Factor could be 5% 6% 4% whatever may be uh and then I apply the expenses to it and then capitalize that value with the tax rate built into the cap rate because the landlords typically pay the taxes landord PID a lot of the expenses I don't include the expenses paid by the tenants just the landlord and then so I have the the gross income with a vacancy factor which then comes down to what we call an effective grow and then I subtract all the um expenses and I capitalize it and capitalize meaning I have a capitalization rate which is developed by the current interest rate and the return on the Investments and you know c cap rates could be 7% 6 and a half% um court systems in New Jersey are accepting you know if you can prove at six or six and a half% sometimes lenders will lend less than that but it's hard for me to prove that in the court but I can prove you know 6 and a half 7% which is the judges seem comfortable with um and then after that I take the tax rate or actual tax rate and I add it to the capitalization rate because I'm saying the landlord is paying the taxes and I capitalize my bottom line number which is called the noi and operating income and then I come up with the value and I do that for the the larger ones you know like the garden part large ones the small smaller units such as the two families three families and four families I use two ways to look at one is I look at the sales and I analyze it per unit per per apartment so if something sells simple math if something sells for 100,000 you have four units are worth $225,000 per apartment and then what I do is I look at a gross rent multiplier and a gross rent multiplier is when you take the the total annual rent and you can you analyze it to the sale price so some four family sells and you know what the sale price is and you know what the rent is you can find out how many times the annual rent that sells for is 10 11 13 whatever it is it varies and it will vary because it depends on who who pays the utilities but without getting that much involved is that was that gross rent multiplier gives me an array of what how many times the annual income these properties are selling for because years ago when people sold multifamilies they would say oh that sells 10 times gross but that sells you know 12 times gross and and you just take the gross income for one year multiply it by 12 or 10 and that's how a rough estimate of what you think that multi theom is work that that is something that I use to develop because to find out where those are selling sell selling for and also the you know s sale per unit but when you go what you mentioned the Garden Apartments the bigger ones we I do an income approach um based on the rent and the expenses and the cap rates and that's treat it more like a commercial property like if it was an office building or a retail shopping center you know I'm doing the same thing take taking the to total rents and vacancy and minus the expenses and capitalizing the value okay and so while I appreciate look how much detail you you you you clearly go into with your analysis on all of that I'm going to dumb it I'm going to back up and dumb it down a little bit for me um the simplify it I'm not GNA dumb it down that's we'll simplify it just for me because I'm I'm sure I'm the only one that that needs to be simplified um the let when it comes to the line item that you gave us here on the chart for specifically the larger Garden type Apartments let's call them for lack of better word um that percent change this this year was 6.59% you mentioned so the assessment went up 72 um up from 68 um for a difference of 44843 correct on that line item so what you're telling me is that that assessment that difference in value of over almost four and a half million dollars takes into account whatever the landlords have invested in regarding repairs and and and as well so this is so what you're saying is the the six and 6.59% increase in value um is does you know or has already taken into account any money they've invested in the property over that year right did I understand that correctly yes but some of the money that they invested yeah is advertised over a period of time I don't I'll take it I'll say well this this is this is uh something that I I'll look at and say you know it's I'm going to advertise it over a 5 year or 10 year period so if something is $100,000 um I'm not just going to take that lump number of 100,000 in some cases when a Capital Improvements I'll take it as as you know 20,000 over the next five years or something of that nature um so I have to look at it but yes you're absolutely right it takes into consideration all the Improv that's F takes into consideration the rent increases but what it also entails too is interest rates so if the interest rates go up and so but we talked about my capitalization rate so the higher the interest rates the lower the value the lower the interest rate the higher the value so if interest rates go up they have an impact on commercial properties because the they're paying more in to the bank for interest then they're collecting in their pocket their their profit is coming down because they're and so therefore when they're looking at this investment their profit margin is less than than it would be with a lower interest rate so what they're doing is they're the the interest rates if every time it goes up a point or two then it it has an impact on the because you can only increase rates rents so much you can't r4500 in month you can only re50 or $100 do it but if the interest rates go up a point and a half well that's a pretty big jump that has an impact on the on the value that's fascinating that's that really is um and just interpolating if it's six and a half six 5 9% change from last year to this year um and even taking that into account taking the maybe the interpolation over five to 10 years into account or looking at maybe a little more than 1% again and plus that not even accounting for that interest that that interest versus profit margin that's fascinating thank you for that explanation that gives me a little more insight into the the numbers so thank you that um okay so a couple more of my questions um related to um let sorry just want to go back and look at my notes here are our assessments affected by changes to um the ordinances property ordinances that we have done over you know the last year let's say for example um one of the things that we highlighted in one of the ordinances um or either I don't even I honestly I can't remember if we executed it or not but something that's been proposed over the years I forgive my my memory um is things like single family homes that have um a lot of people are doing a sheeds or um out buildings that are their um work from home location and one of the proposals was to um um accept an out building as part of um as a as acceptable to um either build or renovate to create um either an onsite small business or you know one of the things I just mentioned does that um has any of our ordinances affected your um assessments or do you ever take a look at any ordinance changes that we make to a influence your assessments uh I don't actively read all the ordinance hon why not but uh the answer to question is if it's a zoning change or you know and you allow the property to be expanded you know the improvements to be expanded whether you you had a detach small office or a a uh you expanded your what we call Floor area ratio so that you could have more space absolutely it it the the more relaxed you are in your ordinances when it comes to the uh you know the uh development of a property um it it has a big impact on value um so basically I can I explain it um I don't want to words in your mouth but it's basically if the more flexible the ordinance is or if it gets more flexible or allows more that's something that be would could could affect your assessment analysis yes I mean what what I do see is that sometimes and I won't mention here but I see in some towns they they have very restrictive ordinances and somebody will build a home and on on an acre and a half or an acre lot and after they finish building it they want to put a swimming pool in a cabana and and large patio and the town will say well the ordinance doesn't allow for it and therefore you can't have a patio and you can't have a this patio unless you come in for variance and now it costs you know the taxpayer quite a bit money to come in and ask for a patio pool in a cabana if they can get that um approv the so the more relaxed the ordinance are in that kind of an example the more valuable the property becomes because you can expand those you know that those uses and have those uses in your backyard um so again we're back to floor area of coverage you know have um how much floor area can you can you cover in a on a lot how much space can you develop with between patios pools house whatever it becomes more advantageous now those ordinances in the ordinance book I read all this I read I follow those are the ones I follow is is what the ordinances are that allow you in the building codes you know to do in the town and people will ask me you know what what can I do with my home home here can I can I put a pool in and I'll say well I'm not the zoning officer but I think you need to speak to your owning officer but this I give them copies of the of it and and say you know you really need to talk to the only thir you know I don't know really and maybe in the back of my mind I'm like no but I'm not going to say no to that person I think direct over great that that's that's great so you you are aware that we we have um adjusted some ordinances some are still proposed and you keep track of that stuff as year to year what those like I I read through very good okay great great that's that's also um that's wonderful um the I'm Gonna Change uh the subject a little bit we're going on an hour and 15 minutes with them okay um this is really supposed to be about assessments and how it affects the budget and we've really gone way a far of that so if we can kind of keep these questions towards how assessments and the assess values and everything else are impacting the budget or not impacting the budget I think we had nine people listening originally we've lost them all so um well I I thought that my my questions related to assessments but I will um try to pair pair it down or focus it a little more um and the direct okay thank you I appreciate that that side note um assessment of non-for-profits uh publicly owned buildings things that aren't you know taxable how does that affect how is that affecting our budget this year um has that does that something that you keep that that you even keep track of or could can or can advise us on you know how it maybe is affected at last year versus this year I'm not sure where that question is landing but you get my drafted thank you maybe the the exempt properties that we do have in town you know the exempt organizations that operate in town and own their buildings uh of course don't pay taxes uh those I go and I still inspect those to see if they're operating as an exempt organization still occupi the facility and and that they're not subletting the space out to a profit organization um in the county and and you know it's a lot of buildings and they their exemp of course um so the the and I have to assess those each year to to come up with a value to put in the tax list so when you look at the tax list you'll see those buildings that are sess um are they listed as a different I'm sorry to interrupt you are they listed as a different class on this they're not on this sheet but there they are class 15s and there's there's 15 A B C D E I would love to see that eventually just as a side note that that line item on here I can print out that' be great I could print out all the exemp properties that's that's love that would tell you who owns it and what what they are and I can that's fine that's easy to do system um and what their assessments are and um so that's something I I canish everyone you know a copy of that has the has any properties either um been abandoned or been kind of underutilized or demolished and left for years or um whether whether or not they're an area in need R development currently or not um makes some difference uh properties that are under construction for years and years and years how are those addressed in your yearly review and has anything in particular affected this year's budget as a result of those um there in the past um we had some homes that were um that were in need of need of repair that um were over in the section of town like I'm thinking that over in the stangle area um and different parts of town that uh have been purchased and and renovated and assessments increased as a result of those but they were in dire need of repair for many years and and finally they when they sold the new owners came in and renovated those um that that which are you know kind of referring to abandon um well I wouldn't I don't know if abandon is the right word because the people still own the property they still pay taxes on the um no the the ague property was was not really being used as its fullest use but it did have approvals it just sold for for because of the approvals it sold for considerably more than it than it did you know a few years ago um and you take that into account your your ass yes I do and I approv anytime a property receives approvals I try to follow that because then I I can adjust those assessments upward because of the approval process that they received for um like Liberty Village Liberty Village increased quite a bit this year you know because with the approval process increased last year you know and now I just spent time working with the the owner and we're setting up the block and lots and and going through that so the next stage after they demolish it and following that uh with Liberty Village and I would they're going to be demolishing the buildings and I would say sometime in 2025 you're going to start to see dwellings being built and you know that was a we all know what happened in Liberty Village so that I mean that was a one that value was extremely high and came down and now it's going to be more than the rable after it's finished will be three times what Liberty was and it's it's and it's height you know because of all the homes that are going over there um again that's a that falls kind of goes in line with another one of my questions as far as Trends and housing over the last two decades you know and where is that going how that would how how that affects our budget um um year versus next year so what H how kind of shift that into like right now like well that's why yeah that's what I was trying to get right right that's that's what I was trying to get at was I don't want you to I don't want you to to to ask I don't want you to answer what those Trends are were the last two the last two decades what I want to know is how does that how is that affecting our budget last year versus this year well I'll give you one Village is ass up 28% this year so that increase in value has help the value of the Town go up as you could see our commercial here went up 10.86 which just that one property investment went up not every lot couple of their lots are isolated but the larger Lots went up 20 28% um you know so some of these um Agway property just got up 20 some per or more um in the year yeah this p in our budget this will be reflected in your budget because it's reflected in the ratables so this is good point this if if we didn't do a reassessment and we just let the assessment sit and the only thing they would would increase would would be some type of a develop a new house or whatever might might increase it or commercial bill or whatever the taxes would um the the change in taxes would be 100% related to the budgets so they they wouldn't be calling me they would be calling you and the and the school in the county and thing why did the tax rate go up 6 cents 10 cents 8 C whatever it may be you know whatever is needed for the budget so what happens is that the more the the ratables that we have ratables meaning assessments an increase in assessments it helps it helps the budgets um it helps it because you're bringing in a large taxpayer who's going to pay more taxes than the property and develop it like egg way like Liberty Village it's going to develop that property and take some of the burden off of the existing property owners in town doesn't mean that the overall taxes collected are going to be less it might be more but that those prop new Property Owners will will absorb some of the burden the existing burden that the taxpayers in town have so the answer your question yes it's the more you allow the zoning the more things you approve the more development in a positive manner that that occurs it's going to help the existing residents in town existing commercial properties in town and it's going to help you know with your with your budgets you know in in a positive way so I I get it I oh yes yes I have one more question for um uh related to um is there a line item on our budget and we might have to ask fill this next week is the line is there a line in on our budget for um properties that have been e have been not paying taxes but are eligible to pay taxes um uh either non for-profits like you said that aren't working that that aren't working anymore or um I don't know there's a there's a few in town and I don't want to necessarily highlight them but is there how much of your time per year is spent um going after properties that um are under text and and how does and is that reflected in the budget that we're reviewing U this you know in these next few weeks um line in our budget that shows tax exempt properties there's a line in our budget for uncollected tax that's what I'm looking for it's in the budget okay that is in the budget that's maintained by Rebecca Rebecca The Collector are are you are you going after one that are are you going after ones that aren't collect I I know you're not the I know you're not the tax collector but there are properties in town that need to be reassessed um their assessments too low because yeah no because there use isn't what it used to be well that's one of the things that FCP is working with as well they're working that was I that's more that's that's his yeah FCP FCP along we had a discussion with at nfcp exactly about that and we're working at they're working at that there's they're doing some things as well that will include Rebecca so there's something that's happening that is going on it's not it hasn't materialized yet but we've had the discussion that that's something that everybody's going to be look great that's probably all I need to know then I'm done Council you have any question I'm gonna allow her to talk Liz can you talk oh can you hear me okay no I'm gonna I'm gonna just I've been listening everything thank you so much for asking great questions um but I don't I don't have anything right now great thank you all right anybody have anything directly read regarding how assessed values translate to the budget and thank you so much for all your time you're welcome thank you nice nice seeing everybody thank you um oh wait I'm G to unmute her again uh we're going to go on to the regular agenda just point um are you good yeah I'm here I'll mute at you because we have to do roll call soon okay okay agenda resolution 20447 authorizing the hiring as temporary electrical sub vide uh our um electrical official had a tragedy in his family taking a temporary leave of absence and so we have to keep moving with inspections because we have a lot going on in town so John Tillson our construction uh official um found this gentleman willing to step in on a temporary basis and so this is uh putting him into our payroll system I have a motion please move for a second second roll call please yes Council carara yes councilman Le yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president rosti yes thank you resolution 2024 48 referring ordinances 20 24- 01 to the fingon B planning board for findings and reviews in accordance with local Redevelopment Housing law njsa 48 col 12 a-7 um so this is attached it's regarding development with Village and um Mo long Sor second roll call please councilman angelart yes councilwoman tar yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president Rosetti yes um and then finally in ordinance uh B this is an introduction ordinance you have a number on this oh oh 20241 2401 so 2020 this is actually backwards we should have introduced this first before sorry 2401 was sent to all of you at least six weeks ago uh which is the plan Amendment uh as uh written by our planner Manis um um and approved by uh redeveloper um so this the introduction will happen tonight then it's referred to the planning board planning board has up to 45 days to take this on uh that will is is or will be fighting the consistency review for the planning board and uh Monday night this coming Monday night pilot um Pilots for the site I can't remember four of them or three of them one for the commercial building one for the veterans homes and at least one for the town houses I'm not sure if the low mod income have their own ordinance um the pilots have have been um agreed to by the developer as of this weekend um there you all heard that all a executive sessions really been no changes to anything they will be posted publicly uh as soon as I get clean copies of them uh from from here on which should be tomorrow uh they'll be posted publicly public to look at them um and you'll be introducing them on Monday um and then all that will be left are is the uh resolution which is the Redevelopment plan itself um and that is still has snag which um will be discussed in executive session next week um under contrac negotiations um so uh introducing an or 20241 in ordinance B of cl to adopting the Liberty Village phas one Redevelopment plan dated January 23 2024 and resending Liberty vill elment plan PL bur dated November 18 2021 is amended in accordance with local development housing law JSA 48 call 12-7 I have a motion to introduce move is there a second second roll call please Council engart yes Council yes counc Le yes counc president La yes councilman par yes and Council vice president for second yes uh and that public hearing is um reled to be um March 2th March 25th if and only if the agreement is completed actually that's not true we can do the public hearing and not call vote so yes we'll do the public hearing on March 25th um yes um because we're gonna the contract should be voted on when the pilot and the plan are voted on um so we can do the public hearing and if the if the contract's ready great if it's not we'll hold H um okay um we're up to public comment session uh anybody from the public questions or comments say questions comments up to the mic name address the record staying none um again before we leave and it's going Toge all of you talk to Bill if you about the budget um we have a lot of things that we have to do by law for the DPW Water and Sewer with all of these new rules that have come down that are going to cost the buau literally millions of dollars um so if you have questions about capital and paying down debt if you have questions about capital and not putting enough money in if you have questions at all about this I'm urging you to not wait uh for Bill to be here but private conversations with him um because last year Bill really wanted to see a budget that was at least three and a half to four and a half% uh to get this debt under control it didn't happen and uh as he said to me uh in writing not long ago was trying to make up for the shortfall from last year so um that's it can I have a motion to Long move Mo second fa thank you all