Allegheny County eyes 'long overdue' property tax reassessment after years of delays

For more than a decade, Allegheny County has failed to rebalance its taxes with a countywide property reassessment - a decision that experts say has driven up rents, discouraged new construction and led to increasing blight in long-neglected neighborhoods.

That could soon change as County Council considers a bill that would force the government to bring property values up to date in the second-largest county in the state.

On Wednesday, council held the first in a series of public meetings on the legislation at the Community College of Allegheny County South Campus Theater in West Mifflin, where they heard from a small group of residents, the majority of whom urged council members to pass the ordinance.

"I hope you care enough to do the right thing," said Julie Zavon, 70, of Squirrel Hill.

In the past, reassessments have sparked widespread outcry from homeowners who see their property values suddenly rise - sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars.

Politicians, fearful of the potential backlash from voters, have allowed the county's tax system to languish with outdated values, said Jack Billings, research committee chair for Pro-Housing Pittsburgh, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing.

"Since it's politically unpopular to increase property tax rates, politicians try to avoid that as much as possible," he said in an interview before the hearing.

That has left Allegheny County as the largest county in the country that does not regularly reassess the properties within its borders, Billings said.

Every state mandates regular assessments except for Pennsylvania - which stopped doing so in the 1970s - leaving the responsibility to county governments. Philadelphia, the only county in the state larger than Allegheny County, committed to regular reassessments in 2013.

Billings said Allegheny County's failure to enact similar legislation over the years has stifled housing development and discouraged some property owners from addressing blight because new construction generally triggers a reassessment of a property's value, which would likely lead to a tax increase for the owner.

"So essentially, we are paying people to hold on to property and let it decay," he said.

Billings said the burden also falls on renters because if there is no incentive to build, the supply of housing remains stagnant while demand increases, pushing rent prices higher.

Pro-Housing Pittsburgh has been modeling what new assessments would look like, and those forecasts predict neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh - such as Lawrenceville, Bloomfield and the Strip District - would likely see their property values rise, more so than the suburbs, according to Billings.

"Those are areas where, 15 to 20 years ago, the demand for living there wasn't terribly high," he said. "Now everyone wants to live there, so values there are much higher."

Meanwhile, the lack of regular assessments over the years has disproportionately benefited wealthier property owners who have had the time and money to appeal their values to have them reduced, Billings said.

"What you end up having is a regressive situation where wealthier households pay a lower effective tax rate because they have assessed their properties and gotten their assessments knocked down a bit," he said.

County Council's bill would bring Allegheny County in line with nearly every other area in the country and has drawn support from researchers far outside the region.

Last month, a pair of national property tax experts wrote letters to County Council to encourage it to enact the bill.

John Anderson, the Baird Family Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, said in his letter that regular countywide tax reassessments are "essential for an equitable and transparent tax system."

"This legislation, if passed and implemented, will strengthen the Allegheny County property tax system, making it more fair and equitable," he wrote to council on April 1.

Mark Skidmore, professor and Morris Chair in State and Local Government Finance and Policy at Michigan State University, also pushed for the proposed legislation in a letter to council on April 20.

"While there could be an initial political backlash when a taxing jurisdiction replaces outdated valuations with accurate valuations, these issues dissipate once the new assessment regime becomes routine," he wrote. "The end result is a better and fairer system with fewer taxpayer complaints."

If passed, the legislation would require the county to reassess each property every three years - the same amount of time it took to complete the last countywide revaluation.

The bill's sponsors - council members Dan Gryzbek, Bethany Hallam and Lissa Geiger Shulman -said the current system is inequitable and violates the state's constitution, a recurring claim about Allegheny County's property assessment practices.

In the early 2000s, a group of property owners sued the county over the lack of regular assessments, arguing that was a violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires all residents to be taxed in the same manner.

In 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote in an opinion that there was "ample evidence" that the system was unconstitutional and would create inequities that "tend to increase over time."

Since then, however, little has changed.

"We've had opportunities to mandate regular reassessments in the past, and we have failed to do so," Billings said. "I think this bill has a decent chance, and I think that it is long overdue."

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