I reviewed that maps and I think that the tax reassessment fairly and accurately reflected market conditions at the time of the reassessment. Most properties on Summit and Prospect Ave appreciated faster than the rest of the Fairmount Section, and they got tax increases. The quality of life in the city's working class neighborhoods have improved significantly, which is the result of home improvements, demolition of old structures, and new construction. Nobody should be surprised that houses on Berry Street, or Park Street, or most of the First Ward, have appreciated MORE than the rest of the city, on average. Those neighborhoods have improved. That's why assessments there have skyrocketed. Nor is it a surprise that the tax burden has shifted away from commercial and industrial properties. We all know that the boom was in residential real estate more than non-residential...DUH !!!!
What's unfair is that property values have gone down since the reassessment was completed, and do not reflect the current values now in February 2008. That is true all across the city. All homeowners, working class to middle-upper class, are suffering equally. Property values have gone down, but the city's budget has not. This creates a budget crisis.
We're going to have a repeat of the early 1990's, in which thousands of property owners petition for tax appeals, AND WIN. This will AGAIN create a budget crisis of great consequence, because the city budget is not going to go down along with property values after tax appeals.
And here's the irony, there was a full re-evaluation in 1987. That re-evaluation was also was done the very year that the real estate market peaked. Wow, history has really chosen to repeat.