Carteret, NJ – The Carteret Finance Department has announced that the Borough is conducting town-wide revaluation of residential and commercial properties. A similar revaluation was conducted in 2011-2012, which resulted in a significant reduction in property taxes for a majority of residential properties.
Recently, there has been a marked increase in the sale price of industrial and commercial properties in the Borough which has led finance officials to determine that such properties are once again under-assessed. Currently, the new industrial properties are being sold for $200-$300 a square foot for warehouse and distribution manufacturing space. To compound the issue, many commercial property owners have filed appeals seeking to lower their assessments based upon the Borough’s current ratio of assessment to fair market value of 88% for the current year, 2016. The ratio is calculated annually by the Middlesex County Board of Taxation and is driven by the number and value of residential property sales.
“The idea is to make sure every property is at today’s fair market value,” said Mayor Reiman. “As we saw a few years ago with the growth we have experienced, over 70% of the residential properties saw a significant decrease in their taxes, while most others remained the same.”
There are currently 5,156 residential parcels and 219 commercial and industrial parcels within the Borough of Carteret. The commercial growth for the year 2016 increased the tax base by nearly $68 million, however, due to commercial tax appeals, the property assessments were significantly skewed; shifting the tax burden.
The Borough anticipates the revaluation will not impact most residential properties. It will insure that similar properties are assessed similarly and that all classes of properties in town are paying their fair share of taxes. The Borough officials believe that this will prevent the shifting of the tax burden from the larger commercial and industrial property owners onto local homeowners.
The Borough residents will have an opportunity to discuss their evaluation with the tax assessor, and the company conducting the revaluation. The new tax assessment will take effect January 1st, 2017.
