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Monday, November 14, 2005

Law - N.H. Puts a Price on Panoramas: Property Taxes Soar Based on Scenery

"N.H. Puts a Price on Panoramas: Property Taxes Soar Based on Scenery" is the headline to a story today in the Washington Post. The story begins with this photo, with this caption:

N.H. resident Brad Wilder stands in front of his hillside home's sweeping view. The town of Plainfield, N.H. determined that Wilder's view is worth $237,265, and requires Wilder to pay about $4,700 in property taxes on it annually.
More quotes from the front-page story:
PLAINFIELD, N.H. -- The view from Brad Wilder's hillside house is a 270-degree panorama of New England high country: the rugged peak of Mount Ascutney, the reddening leaves and white-painted houses of the Connecticut River valley and -- on some lucky fall days -- migratory geese cruising by at eye level.

His vista is stunning. But you can't say it's priceless.

Wilder's view has actually been valued right down to the dollar: According to the town of Plainfield, it is worth $237,265. In 2003, town officials deemed it a bonus feature of his home, like a third bathroom or marble countertops, and ordered him to pay about $4,700 in property taxes for it.

Which left Wilder with a lot of questions. Chief among them: How do you value a view?

That is the strange conundrum that is captivating New Hampshire at the moment, as town officials have embarked on an controversial quest to quantify -- and then tax -- the beauty of their residents' vistas.

Now, landowners with high-value views are livid about their tax bills, and they have started pressing officials to explain just how, exactly, they managed to distill the ineffable majesty of nature into dollar values.

Turns out, it is not a totally exact science. "It's more of an 'I know it when I see it' kind of thing," said Thomas Holmes, the assessor for the town of Conway, N.H.

The problem in New Hampshire is not simply that "view factors" are being used in property appraisal -- that is by no means unique to the Granite State. In most places, experts say, if a property's view is good enough to make a buyer pay something extra for it, an assessor will try to estimate that something extra and include it in the property's assessed value. * * *

But New Hampshire is different, because the state's views have become so sky-high valuable, and so fast. Statewide, one assessor said the maximum value added because of a view has jumped from a maximum of around $20,000 about 10 years ago to $200,000 or more now.

One example among many: In Winchester, N.H., Bennet Nicholson's view of the Connecticut River valley helped bump his property value up from about $98,000 in 2002 to about $273,000 in 2003 -- and more than doubled his property taxes.

Check out photos of the types of views that add from 50% to 500% to the value of a piece of property.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 14, 2005 01:05 PM
Posted to General News