Carlton, Kendall will delay town-wide reassessments for a year

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 April 2022 at 10:53 am

The towns of Carlton ad Kendall will wait a year for town-wide reassessments to see if the market settles down and the impact of inflation.

Lisa Hewitt, the assessor for both towns, made the announcement about the postponement.

“It has been decided that additional time is needed to responsibly inform property owners of assessment changes and the potential impact to taxes,” Hewitt said in a public notice. “Both towns have agreed, that given the recent rise in inflation across the area, that they do not want the changes in assessment adding extra stress to property owners.”

Many towns in Orleans County and in the region are doing reassessments and the numbers have been a shock to property owners with a wild real estate market pushing housing values up significantly.

In Clarendon, for example, the average assessment for the 1,000 properties in the town increased 25 percent since the last reassessment in 2019.

The median price for homes in Orleans County is up 68.5 percent in four years, jumping from $81,000 in 2017 to $136,500 in 2021, according to data from the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors.

Tony Cammarata, the Kendall town supervisor, said he supports olding off on a town-wide reassessment for a year.

“To do a re-val this year would create a lot of uncertainty and that’s not the objective of the town,” Cammarata said. “We want to work with factual data and the factual data we don’t have.”

Cammarata said he expects the real estate prices will come down now that interest rates are going up.

“Let’s see how the market changes,” Cammarata said. “And it’s changes. In order to do a fair assessment of the situation, it is in the best interest to hold off and see how the market levels off. Hopefully the market will calm itself down and hopefully it will be better to residents.”

Cammarata said he expects the Town Board will approve a resolution of support of the assessor’s decision during its meeting on Tuesday.