Quoted Text

Home values rise on Hamilton Hill
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
By Kathleen Moore (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — The success of housing agencies and enterprising Guyanese rehabbers has translated into higher assessments in the city’s Hamilton Hill neighborhood.
A decade ago, the average Hamilton Hill house could be purchased for $16,000 — and even at that price, very few sold. Taxes based on those prices were the lowest in the city.
Now, many Hill houses are selling for more than $60,000, with quite a few breaking the $90,000 mark.
The change has been heralded by some as a great success for the embattled neighborhood. But poor longtime residents are complaining that the “success” has now pushed their assessments through the roof — making it difficult for them to afford the taxes on houses they once bought for $10,000.
“The taxes are unbelievable, and it’s like hell living here,” said Schenectady Street resident Pamela LaBrake, whose house value rose 71 percent in the reassessment. “I don’t know why anyone would want to live here. We have one really good neighbor — and then we have all the awful neighbors.”
On her street — where her house cost $10,000 in 1984 — the average assessment now is $60,000. Her house is assessed at $55,000, which would actually lead to a $6 reduction in city taxes next year if the City Council doesn’t vote to increase the tax rate. But many residents don’t understand the difference between an increase in assessments and an increase in taxes.
And whether taxes go up or not, LaBrake and others say the assessments don’t make sense. The assessor has dozens of sales that show buyers are willing to pay much more than they once did, but LaBrake said the buyers must be “blind.”
“I’m serious. I was blind,” she said. “We moved in winter; it was quiet. And in the summer, it was like a war zone.”
Residents report hearing shots fired weekly, although all three of this year’s killings in the city so far have occurred in other neighborhoods, and despite regular police raids, many drug dealers still do business in apartments known as “drug storefronts.”
Making matters worse, recent surveys reported that one in every four houses on Hamilton Hill is vacant and only 24 percent of the houses are owned by the occupant.
For decades, the city’s grassroots solution to the crime problem has been to encourage homeownership, and Assessor Patrick Mastro said the rise in property values can be partly attributed to that work...........>>>>>>>.........http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/may/13/0513_hamhill/