Hundreds of Franklin County homeowners descended on Dublin Tuesday to deliver the same message: My home isn't this valuable.

With documents, photos and even blueprints in hand, homeowners showed up to protest the Franklin County auditor's estimated new values for their properties.

They lined up even before doors opened at 11 a.m. at the Dublin Community Recreation Center, the site of the first of 17 review sessions that will be held throughout the county through Sept. 28. (For a list of session locations and times, see the list in the fact box accompanying this story, or visit franklincountyauditor.com.)

"A lot of people are dissatisfied," said Donna Martin-Miller, who showed up with her husband, Larry Miller, and 26 photos, to challenge the value on three Galloway properties they own. One, a vacant lot, jumped in value by more than 200 percent.

The Millers and others waited for more than an hour to make their case to one of 30 appraisers employed by Tyler Technologies, the Texas-based company hired by the auditor's office to reappraise county property. By the end of the day, 573 property owners had challenged their values.

County Auditor Clarence Mingo said he welcomed the turnout.

"We want people to let us know anything we don't know about their house," Mingo said.

Mingo said he expected the number of challenges at the sessions to be comparable to the 26,509 parcels whose values were challenged in 2011, when the last major county reappraisal occurred.

That year, residents were upset their homes declined in value. Now, with property values rising an average of 14 percent throughout the county, homeowners more often are challenging increases.

But the changes in property values vary widely, from an average 25 percent jump in Grandview Heights, Dennison Place, Italian Village, Olde Towne East and German Village, to an average 10 percent decline in Brittany Hills on the Northeast Side and Homestead Heights in the Linden area.

About 16 percent of properties in the county dropped in value; 2 percent rose by more than 100 percent.

The auditor's office stressed that property taxes will not rise anywhere near as much as property values.

Because of state limits on how much additional revenue schools and other taxing bodies can collect from rising property values, taxes will rise about 2 percent countywide, ranging from 1.3 percent in Dublin to 4 percent in Grandview Heights.

The new values are used more to shift the property tax burden than to raise the amount of taxes collected. In fact, a few homeowners whose values rose will actually see a decline in taxes.

Overall, most homeowners will pay about $50 more a year in taxes for each $100,000 in home valuation, the auditor's office concluded.

Nonetheless, those who attended Tuesday's session were alarmed by property value increases, some of which climbed more than 50 percent.

"I feel like they're penalizing homeowners for keeping their homes up," said Dave Casto, whose Northeast Side home rose 58 percent in value. "It just feels like an attempt by the county to get more money."

After the sessions, most people seemed satisfied that their concerns were heard.

"I think they listened to us," said Pat Whitehead, who contested the value of a Northwest Side duplex that he and his wife, Nancy, own.

Dave O'Neil, spokesman for the auditor's office, said 60 percent of those who challenged their values in the 2011 and 2014 sessions saw some change in their values.

Homeowners won't learn for a few months whether they successfully made their case. Appraisers will evaluate the arguments and recommend values to the county, which will arrive at final figures in time for tax bills, which are mailed in December.

Mingo said final values should appear on the auditor's website around Thanksgiving.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker