Orange County residents discuss property tax inequities during meeting in Hillsborough. (Photo: Greg Childress)
Orange County residents attending a meeting Monday night about property tax disparities nodded knowingly at Hudson Vaughan’s words.
“Across the country, Black-owned property is under appraised when folks are trying to get bank loans or equity out of their homes but is actually overassessed for property taxes,” said Vaughn, director of the Community Justice Collaborative at the N.C. Housing Coalition.
The audience of mostly elderly, Black residents had heard Vaughan use the words before. Many of them have experienced what he described.
“I was sitting here thinking earlier … I remember back in the day when they [banks and businesses] were charging us Black people a lot more for interest rates on our homes, on our cars and this feels like the same thing,” said Regina Merritt, who lives in rural Councilville. “We’re getting taxed out.”
Vaughan called residents together to provide an update on the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition’s effort to bring tax fairness to about a dozen historically Black communities across Orange County. More than 160 residents and supporters attended the meeting held at the Whitted Human Service Building in Hillsborough.
The coalition is made up of community organizers from historically Black neighborhoods across Orange County including Councilville, Mars Hill, Fairview, Rogers Road, Piney Grove, Efland-Cheeks, Cedar Grove, Northside, Pine Knolls, Tin Top, and Glosson/Davie Rd.
Vaughan opened with good news. He said that of more than 220 residents the group helped file property valuation appeals, about 50 received “good reductions” in assessed property values of more than 10%. Four neighborhoods received land value reductions that will collectively save them $500,000 a year, he said.
Lower property valuation means lower property taxes for property owners. Low-income residents and those on fixed incomes said they are finding it difficult to pay the higher tax bills they received after the county’s recent property revaluation.
According to the coalition, Orange County data shows that historically Black neighborhoods were overvalued, which led to more than $2 million in unfair property tax increases.
Horace Johnson Jr. (Photo: Greg Childress/NC Newsline)“This is about the haves and the have nots,” said Horace Johnson, the son and namesake of Hillsborough’s first and only Black mayor who recently died. “Right now, it’s coming down to money. What’s a senior supposed to do? Decide whether to take their insulin, get their shots? Pay their water bill or light bill? Get the roof fixed or pay their taxes an end up in the street?”
Vaughan said residents provided the county with evidence-based appeals that included corrections about the condition of homes, challenges to lot assessments and neighborhood sales data residents used to justify lower value of homes and lots.
The residents’ advocacy also led the county to review all the neighborhoods the coalition deemed “problematic,” and prompted the establishment of a tax assessment work group to review and evaluate the policies, processes, and procedures used by the county tax office to assess property values. The work group will also examine how the tax office communicates with the public about assessments.
Still, Vaughan said, there is much work left to do.
Of the 220 appeals the coalition helped residents file, 60 were outright rejected or received tiny reductions, Vaughan said. He cited an example of one Black homeowner who found that her tax record included a bathroom she did not have. The homeowner filed an appealed and her property value was reduced by only $1,000, Vaughan said.
“Can you believe that?” Vaughan asked. “Now, they [Orange County] claim that was an appeal that was granted but what I want to point out is how pathetic that response is. It is unjustifiable and unacceptable.”
In the Perry Hill community west of Mebane, Vaughan said every appeal for tax relief was rejected.
“All of those had comparable sales” of nearby homes to show the county, Vaughan said. “They showed the differences between the interiors of the homes and every one was outright rejected.”
Vaughan is doing similar work in Wake County, which he said is the best in the state in ensuing equity in property taxes.
“All but one of all of the appeals we submitted [in Wake County] got accepted, and the average was three times as much as we’ve seen here in Orange County,” he said.
In an interview, Vaughan said recent revaluations have placed intense pressure on Black neighborhoods and long-term residents, many of who have lived in those communities their entire lives.
“We’ve had a lot of folks say that if they didn’t get reductions, they were going to have to sell their homes,” Vaughan said. “We’ve had people threatened with foreclosure as a result of the tax rises. We’ve had people paying as much as 80% of their income to property taxes.”
He noted that renters and homeowners who spend more than 30% of income on house are considered cost-burdened.
“We’ve had some folks who are paying more than half of their income to just property taxes alone,” Vaughan said. “So those pieces make it very difficult to both stay in your home and to have money to do other things.”
Orange County tax administrator Nancy Freeman told NC Newsline in May that after a preliminary review of the information provided by Vaughan and the coalition, her office didn’t seeing any “prevailing issues” with properties it has been able to identify and review.
“That’s not to say there are not problems within that need some attention, but at this moment we’ve not completed a review and at this moment, the ones that we’ve looked at, there’s nothing that’s prevalent from all of them at this point,” Freeman said.
Commissioner Earl McKee (Photo: Orange County)Orange County Commissioner Earl McKee and several other commissioners attended the event.
In an interview, McKee said resident’s stories about property tax disparities are disturbing.
“I don’t know that it was an intentional racial bias,” McKee said. “There is definitely a systemic issue. It seems to be creating a racial disparity. It creates a hardship on our less wealthy people.”
McKee said he will petition commissioners at the board’s meeting Tuesday to hire more appraisers or contract with tax organizations to process property valuations “more credibly and thoroughly” to get true property values.
There’s “no excuse” for a new house with more square footage and more bedrooms and amenities being appraised for less than a much smaller house across the street, McKee said.
“I don’t care if it’s owned by a white family or a Black family … what I care about is what I see as a systemic issue where certain groups of people seem to be, and I believe are, being appraised at a higher value relative to other groups.”
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