Don't Count on The Jefferson to Lower Your Property Taxes

The Water Wheel Condominiums (on Saw Mill River Road (just opposite V.E. Macy Park)) in Ardsley appear ready for occupancy.  The project, built on the former site of the Water Wheel Inn (pictured below) destroyed by arson in 1992 (arson verdict upheld by Appellate Court) described itself as “Westchester’s Most Gracious Supper Club,”  and now is the location of twenty two (22) units of affordable and workplace housing.  The first closings are anticipated to take place this summer. 

Now multiply the Water Wheel buildings by slightly over twelve (12) times and you start to get a sense of the massive nature of JPI ‘s proposed Jefferson project 272 unit rental development less than a mile away on Saw Mill River Road. This is why at one of the scoping sessions for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a former Mayor of Ardsley observed that the colossal Jefferson posed an existential threat to the Village of Ardsley.

One of the benefits touted by the Texas based promoter of The Jefferson is that it will provide roughly eight (8) times the existing property taxes the site now generates with most of the real estate taxes going to the school district( school taxes are usually 60% of a property owner’s  tax bill).  The same argument is being made with respect to the proposed 85-98 bed Assisted Living Facility (known as The Shelbourne) at the existing Sprain Brook Nursery on Underhill Road in the Edgemont section of Unincorporated Greenburgh (where it is contended that the Edgemont School District will receive over half of the estimated $500,000 to $600,000 in tax revenue the project is expected to generate and not have to educate a single child).  

However, as opponents of the Shelbourne project have pointed out, this argument is misleading.  Furthermore, with respect to The Jefferson, depending on the costs of The Jefferson to the Ardsley School District, it may be entirely false.

The new assessed value of the real estate in Edgemont is approximately $1.2 billion dollars.  $250- $300,000 in school district taxes means that if the Shelbourne is permitted to be built, it will be assessed at roughly $16,000,000 (using a tax levy rate of 3.3% on a $16,000,000 property would generate a total $500,000 tax bill).

While it is true the school district will receive this tax money from Shelbourne, it will only represent a small portion of the overall tax levy on the taxpayers in that district. Essentially this means Shelbourne's school tax dollars  will be spread out over all the taxable parcels in Edgemont resulting in a minuscule tax benefit for any particular property owner.  For this "benefit, " the homeowners of Underhill Road (and nearby Sprain Road which is in the Ardsley School District) will be hearing the constant sounds of ambulance and fire truck sirens (the Greenville Fire Department on Central Avenue provides life safety services to Edgemont residents in addition to the Greenburgh EMTs) as they careen around the hairpin curves of Underhill Road to reach the elderly residents of The Shelbourne. As a matter of comparison, the Atria Woodlands assisted living facility in Ardsley now accounts for at least one-third of the calls from the all-volunteer ambulance corps (ASVAC).

Of course, unlike assisted living facilities, The Jefferson will have a number of students who, among other things, will have to be bussed to the various Ardsley schools, and of course educated. Additional teachers may have to be hired. Class size (already high) may further increase.  With the addition of hundreds of new residents and hundreds of new cars, the demands on other local municipal services (police, fire, garbage and recycling, road repair, EMT, etc.) will increase. The cost of these items and others may equal or exceed the possible tax benefits promised by the developer.  Parenthetically, local taxpayers will be further subsidizing The Jefferson with tax credits under New York State's flawed brownfields cleanup law which has been discussed in a series of prior blog posts. 

Further, as The Jefferson is a multi-family rental building, its will be assessed at the lowest residential property tax classification rate. Moreover, the developers of The Jefferson have not agreed to forego their right to challenge their tax assessment set by the Town of Greenburgh in the future.  Along these lines, a number of years ago Boulder Ridge unit owners received a tax refund of 1.5 million dollars from the Ardsley School District.  

Despite the developer's website professed assertion of providing tax relief to Ardsley School District taxpayers, in reality there is only a possibility of a  reduction of everyone’s school district taxes. Even if the developer's estimate of generating 1.2 million dollars in school tax revenue is accurate, at best this will result in a best case scenario of reducing school taxes by 2.4%. If many more children end up living in The Jefferson than predicted (as was true with Boulder Ridge by a factor of 3), or if State Aid becomes less available, or there are fewer out of district tuition students (or less classrooms to accomodate them due to increased enrollment) the claimed tax benefit will be an illusion. State Aid accounted for 10% of the projected 2016-2107 budget and $3,000,000 from the fund balance (the savings account made up of taxes collected but not used) resulted in a tax levy increase of 1.26%. Nevertheless, the entire budget increased 3.9% from the previous year's budget.

Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, the environmental and quality of life burdens to the greater Rivertowns areas adjacent to The Jefferson in terms of, among many other things, traffic, flooding, and life safety have been well established and are being studied as part of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process. Of course, if the tax benefits turn out to be a fiction, our area will be left with the destabilizing aftermath of this mega-project for a generation.

As aptly observed in The Kinks' 1967 song "Sunny Afternoon:"  The tax man's taken all my dough, And left me in my stately home, Lazing on a sunny afternoon. And I can't sail my yacht, He's taken everything I've got, All I've got's this sunny afternoon.

Accordingly, any claimed tax benefit emanating from The Jefferson should be looked at with skepticism as if someone had invited you to dine at the Water Wheel Inn.  When it comes to JPI's self serving bromides that their project is "good" for our community, let's not end up wearing a T-shirt saying "JPI came, built The Jefferson and all we got was a sunny afternoon." Instead, we should look at JPI's propaganda as if it were the missing warning from an application to attend Trump University: 

Nothing here is promised.