Large property owners are again challenging their assessments and threatening to sue the City of Madison for $1.4M. Can you imagine what the city could do with that money? Or what they will do without it?

How many firefighters and police officers will that pay for? And how much money is the city spending staffing these meetings and fighting these assessments. When I was at the Board of Review there were about 6 city staff there and then the had to spend time preparing. And now the city attorney is spending time on these cases as well as the Clerk and Risk Manager. $1.382M is what is needed to add a 9th ambulance.

WHO IS SUING THE CITY OF MADISON?

Well, they’re all LLCs, so who the people are that are hiding behind the LLCs isn’t always easy to figure out. But when you dig deeper it’s affordable housing projects we funded, projects that got TIF, places the City of Madison rented (Pinney Library) and areas that are about to benefit from City Planning processes. Yeah. It’s also hotels and high end apartments that are supposed to be adding to our tax base, but then fight to reduce their contribution.

Items 54 – 69 are another set of developers notifying they are going to sue the city for excessive assessments of their property.

Alan Marcuvitz, von Briesen & Roper, S.C., attorney for Madison Joint Venture LLC, East Towne Mall, 89 East Towne Mall – excessive assessment – $28,799.78 Original Assessment – $63,944,000 Board of Assessors adjusted to – $63,720,000 Board of Review agreed with the adjusted assessment They believe the correct assessment is – $62,444,000

Alan Marcuvitz, von Briesen & Roper, S.C., attorney for Madison Joint Venture LLc, West Towne Mall, 66 West Towne Mall – excessive assessment – $436,600.71 . Original Assessment – $81,696,200 Board of Assessors increased the assessment – $88,900,000 Board of Review agreed with the adjusted assessment They believe the correct assessment is $69,500,000

. Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for Veritas Village, LLC, 110 N. Livingston St. – excessive assessment – $318,584.00.

Original assessment $4,000,000 Board of Assessors raised it to $4,460,000 Board of Review reduced it to $4,340,000 They believe the correct assessment is $2,170,592. Property is at 5801 Gemini Drive, David Baehr and Casey Louther (Luther and Assocaites) were the applicants

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for 8Twenty Park, LLC (Tax Parcel No. 0709-262-2999-3) – excessive assessment – $22,645.00.

This is JT Klein, Inc. Original assessment $3,268,900 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $2,400,000 Property is located at 903 Delaplaine Ct, Unit TIF (<-not sure what that means) They got $1.25 million for affordable housing for phase I and proposed 56 affordable housing units of 67, affordable to people at 30-60% CMI.

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for 8Twenty Park II, LLC – excessive assessment – $20,624.00. Original assessment $2,801,800 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $2,000,000 Property is located at 903 Delaplaine Ct, Unit PHS2 (<-not sure what that means) They got $1.25 million for affordable housing for phase I and proposed 56 affordable housing units of 67, affordable to people at 30-60% CMI.

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for 8Twenty Park, LLC (Tax Parcel No. 0709-262-2901-8) – excessive assessment – $22,645.00. Original assessment $3,268,900 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $2,400,000 The property is located at 903 Delaplaine Ct They got $1.25 million for affordable housing for phase I and proposed 56 affordable housing units of 67 providing housing, affordable to people at 30-60% CMI.

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for Beltline Hotel Partners II, LLC – excessive assessment – $101,422.00.

Project is Sleep Inn and Suites, a 92 unit hotel. Original assessment $8,177,000 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $3,900,000 The property is located at 4802 Tradewinds Parkway Kevin Wilson (Beltline Hotel Partnership II), Jim Gorsich (Dimension IV) and B&R Enteprises were the applicants for this project

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for Madison East Parntership, LLC – excessive assessment – $67,208.00.

Original assessment $8,642,000 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $6,000,000 Property is located at 116 Milky Way

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for Tree Lane Apartments, LLC – excessive assessment – $18,370.00.

Bradley Hutter is the owner Original assessment $16,670,000 Board of Assessors reduced it to $13,580,000 Board of Review reduced it further to $12,500,000 They believe the correct assessment is $10,000,000 The property is located at 2921 Landmark Place This project got TIF funding of $913,000 and said they would retain 255 jobs in the City of Madison. The TIF application has the estimated value of the project at $20,451,000 which is twice the value they are now claiming the project is worth?

Don Millis, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C., attorney for RSS WFCM2013LC12-WI CPM LLC – excessive assessment – $82,184.00.

This is the Crowne Plaza Original assessment $9,500,000 Board of Assessors agreed Board of Review lowered it to $9,070,000 They believe the correct assessment is $5,750,000 The property is located at 4402 E. Washington Ave

Eric Hatchell, Foley & Lardner LLP, for Esker Apartments LLC – excessive assessment – $13,478.77.

Original assessment $1,950,000 Board of Review reduced it to $1,879,000 They believe the correct assessment is $1,357,808 They are claiming that the sales price of the property that the city based the assessment on includes $592,191 in park impact fees. Property is at 2801 Hickory Ridge Road

Eric Hatchell, Foley & Lardner LLP for Mirus Madison II LLC – excessive assessment – $59,001.32. Original assessment $8,750,000 Board of Review affirmed the assessment They believe the correct assessment is $6,500,000 They are claiming that the calculations are based on a blended rate for affordable and market rate housing resulting in an over-assessment of the property. The property is located at 1520 Troy Drive Mirus is a partner Movin’ Out and got $1.1M for The Ace Apartments from the Affordable Housing Fund.

Eric Hatchell, Foley & Lardner LLP, for Bird Dog Hospitality IV – excessive assessment – $49,535.99.

Original assessment $8,500,000 Board of Review agreed They believe the correct assessment is $6,500,000 They say basing the assessment on the recent sales fails to take into consideration other costs included in the sale, including the use of the Best Western brand. Property is located at 4801 Annamark Drive They also filed a claim to sue in 2019 for $8,166



OCTOBER 30TH BOARD OF REVIEW

I attended the meeting of the Board of Review on October 30th. I was curious why all the large property owners and developers continue to challenge their assessments. At this meeting they heard arguments from Terrance Wall (4603 DiLoreto Ave) and East and West Town malls. It was the first time I ever attended one of these meetings in 20 years. Unfortunately, here’s another case where there were all kinds of materials presented, but they aren’t in legistar and easily accessible for the public. My guess is the developers want it that way so other developers can’t see their documents.

I had the meeting audio recorded, but I lost it in a computer crash in November – I was between backups! Boo. From memory and from the minutes I can tell you this.

At that meeting Terrance Wall got a portion of what he wanted, and actually argued the merits of his case. The assessment was lowered from $8,980,000 to $7,700,000. He got a portion of what he wanted, but not all.

East Towne and West Towne tried to argue a technicality. They did not get the waiver they were asking for. The tax assessments were upheld. I recall thinking that they didn’t make a very good argument and that they said something to the effect that they just wanted to make this procedural argument so they could move on and be heard in the courts.

OK KONKEL, WHY DO YOU CARE?

a) $1.4M in the city budget is ALOT. It’s about enough firefighters for a new fire station.

b) People are pressured to support development projects because they add to the city’s tax base. But after all the costs the city has for the development in infrastructure around the building and fighting these cases, what does the city really gain?

c) The city is about to embark on a planning process around East and West Towne Malls. My guess is that will only increase the value of those properties. So why are they fighting the city on their property tax assessments?

d) This is a pattern, every year. It’s hard to track and we often don’t hear the results for quite some time. I haven’t seen an overall briefing to the council on this, but how much are we losing every year in these battles?

e) Developers over inflate the value of their properties when they are trying to get TIF money from the city, then claim afterwards that the property isn’t worth as much as they claimed in their TIF applications.

f) The assessments are all at prices lower than the fair market rate.

g) I’d like to look up the contributions to our local elected officials and see how much money they contributed to campaigns but it is near impossible given that people hide behind LLCs AND there is no easy way to look that up for the City of Madison. It would take hours and hours and hours of research with the records the way they currently are.

h) I’m concerned that city partners at Tree Lane would be suing for $18,000 after all the money we dumped in to their project.

i) If the affordable housing projects are correct, why are we costing them more money that they have to spend on attorneys instead of keeping the housing more affordable.

You can add your concerns here. It just seems like this is a lot of effort being expended and many of these entities suing us are our partners in various efforts. Seems like these issues should be solved before they even get to the Board of Assessors and Board of Review. And definitely before they are threatening to sue.