BOR 2005 04 11
CHANHASSEN BOARD OF
REVIEW AND EQUALIZATION
APRIL 11, 2005
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Peterson, Councilman
Labatt, and Councilwoman Tjornhom
COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT:
Councilman Lundquist
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, City Manager; Justin Miller, Assistant City Manager;
Angle Johnson, Carver County Assessor; Steve Clay, Carver County Assessor; Cassie Zimmer,
Carver County Assessor; and LuAnn Hagen, Hennepin County Assessor
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Jeff Dypwick 10300 Great Plains Boulevard PID No. R25.0253000
Charles Deng 6804 Briarwood Court
RECEIVE COMMENTS REGARDING 2005 PROPERTY EVALUATIONS.
Mayor Furlong: Tonight is an opportunity for residents and other property owners to come
forward and provide either written or oral objections concerning their proposed property
valuations. We can listen this evening, depending on the nature of the comments, we may have
the residents or property owners work with the assessor between now and I believe we have until
the end of this month, now that we’ve come to order to complete that so, which is pretty typical.
Why don’t we start with, if there’s a brief report Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, we’ve got Angie Johnson from Carver County Assessor’s Office and we
have LuAnn Hagen from Hennepin County. We do have a small portion of Chanhassen that
does reside in Hennepin County so we do have their representatives here today. Angie, if you’d
like to start off with a small presentation or any information you have to share.
Angie Johnson: As you know we run a 12 month sales study every year which determines the
market value and so based on the sales that we had this year, they increases that we placed on
Chanhassen basically ended up to be for market residential of 6.6%. Commercial industrial is
4.2. Apartments was 2.5 and basically all other, which mostly was ag land was 16.7. So the
total market growth in Chanhassen was 6.6%. Along with the new construction, which isn’t
included in that figure, the total change in market value came up to 9.34% for the City of
Chanhassen.
Mayor Furlong: So I’m sorry, 9.34 was the year to year increase.
Angie Johnson: Was the market plus new construction.
Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And what approximately was the new construction percentage?
Angie Johnson: Do you want it separated out for each?
Mayor Furlong: Just give me the total for right now.
Angie Johnson: The total for new construction percent 2.5.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any questions for.
Angie Johnson: Also I should introduce staff. This is Steve Clay and Cassie Zimmer. They are
the residential appraisers for the City of Chanhassen for Carver County.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Welcome.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. LuAnn Hagen from Hennepin County had a short
statement she wanted to make regarding Hennepin County’s assessment practices this past year.
Mayor Furlong: Excellent.
Todd Gerhardt: LuAnn, if you could go to the podium, that’d probably be best.
LuAnn Hagen: Okay. Our commercial appraiser looked at all the parcels this year that reside in
Chanhassen. The industrial properties, she looked at the flex buildings on the south side of State
Highway 5. But only the ones directly fronting on State Highway 5. Chanhassen doesn’t have
any apartments in that piece of Hennepin and the property type growth of combined commercial
industrial property was about 5.6%. And that broke out to about 3.1 for commercial and 5.8 for
industrial. 4.6 on vacant land.
Todd Gerhardt: LuAnn, were there any complaints issued or any abatements issued this past
year?
LuAnn Hagen: There were no calls at all on our piece of Chanhassen for this review period.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I guess then at this time, have we received any, I think you just
received one written that were here. Are there others that have been submitted as well? At this
point.
Angie Johnson: …that are in the audience here.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
LuAnn Hagen: I think Mr. Dypwick was the first one and basically Mr. Dypwick just presented
this.
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Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
Councilman Peterson: Mr. Chair, as she’s passing, I do have one question. Angie, you were
working on getting the lake properties looked at last year. Are we pretty much done with that?
Angie Johnson: I’ll let Steve address that.
Steve Clay: Yeah, we are pretty much, at least we were the last time I checked but we’re still
getting some very interesting sales coming in on lakeshore properties. This last year on
Minnewashta there was a sale of a vacant lot in the Landings Addition. Vacant lot, I think
there’s 2 trees on it maybe. But nice lakeshore. Sold for $800,000. Another piece of lakeshore
with a fairly nice house on it on the northerly part of the shoreline a little farther east of the
Landings sold for over $800,000 and then the house was demolished and a new home built on it.
So when I see sales like that, I start to wonder if maybe we have to go back. I’m hoping we
won’t have to go back to do anything drastically with our values. It was 2 years ago that I
believe that we made some fairly significant increases on the lakeshore values. This last year we
had about a more general increase. But if some of these sales like that continue to come in, then
I don’t know.
Angie Johnson: And lakeshore has been of course an ongoing problem. Not only in Chanhassen
but the whole county. Supply and demand is, I mean there’s just not anymore there so as we’ve
been looking at our lakes very closely because yeah, the sales have been just real high.
Councilman Peterson: Good, thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I guess at this point I would invite residents, property owners to
come forward. You don’t have to speak to the Board of Review orally. If you want to submit
written requests for review you can. I guess Angie, you passed out this one here. Do you want
to address that or Mr. Dypwick are you in the audience here? Is there something you’d like to
address at this time or, please come forward.
Angie Johnson: Maybe before Mr. Dypwick gets started here. These figures he took off I
believe his tax statement. Well they’re not current values.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Why don’t we let him talk and then we can have a chance to answer his
questions. Good evening.
Jeff Dypwick: Good evening. This has been an ongoing thing for approximately 3 years where
we’ve had a dispute over my property values. I did some research about my neighbors and so
forth a couple years ago and protested my valuation, which I felt, well which was proved out by
facts and figures to be quite a bit higher than my neighbors. Ultimately we ended up at, in
Minnesota Tax Court. We had the Chief Judge, Judge Perez ended up presiding on a trial and I
didn’t provide you with all the pages. I gave you the first page which kind of shows you the case
and I also gave you just the basic finding at the end. But ultimately what it ended up was, I
thought that we won and we got $50,000 worth of valuation relief. Well, as talking to Mr.
Lundgren ultimately said no. What he said, he said that you got $50,000 worth of market value,
not limited market value. He said I don’t think maybe the judge maybe didn’t understand
exactly what we were discussing there, and I think it’s kind of a sad case if that is true, and I’m
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Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
not sure it is, but if the Chief Tax Judge in the State of Minnesota can’t understand all this, you
think I should? I’m just saying now, whatever Angie says I’m sure is probably true exactly
trying to understand my tax statement. But this is what it says on my real estate tax statement for
the increase for this year. You know, like I say, it just finally gets to me where I don’t know. If
this isn’t the case, but I truly believe that the tax judge was trying to give me some relief. And I
didn’t get any, and now I’m looking at another increase and Angie I’m sure can explain to you
the intricacies of the exact figures but us citizens trying to understand this have more problems I
guess. So I would just like you to consider this. You know obviously if you need to talk to these
people, that’s fine. But somewhere along the line I think I’d like to see what I would consider
maybe a little justice. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there any immediate response? Otherwise unless the Board has
another idea, I would suggest that it’s nice to get this information tonight but I’d like to have
time to take a look at this as well as information from the assessor’s office and I’m not sure, you
know the property tax statements I know include market value and limited market value and last
year and this year and we’re looking at values to be included on the taxes payable for next year
and so there’s a lot of numbers out there, so I fully appreciate your frustration. What we’re
trying to do is fairly, make sure that the numbers are being treated fairly for everybody and so I
guess the question would be at this point.
Angie Johnson: Basically while we’re setting our values we’re looking at market value. And of
course the…gives us a leeway we’re supposed to be at 100% of market value but the leeway is
between 90 and 105. And of course tax court looks at 95 as what they consider the high end.
They compare between the difference of the two… Chanhassen we were at 89%. What
happened in that year of tax court, we were at 85% so there was a 10% reduction just because of
equity purposes. But what we need to do is go back and do a market analysis on Mr. Dypwick’s
property one more time and address this issue at that time. Steve has been the one that, between
the two of us that we handled the tax court case and Steve has gone through his property a couple
different times probably pretty thoroughly so I guess even though it states in the statute that we
are to inspect the property, I think we could handle it without, unless Mr. Dypwick wants us to
come out there and do another inspection.
Jeff Dypwick: You’re certainly entitled any time you want to come out.
Angie Johnson: Okay, well maybe we’ll take a look at it. We do have Mr. Dypwick’s phone
number and that so if we need to go ahead with that, and we’ll bring something back…Board has
any questions of us right now.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this? No, I think some additional information would be
helpful and you know taking into account the information the judge’s conclusion as well so
making sure that that’s part of the information that we receive.
Todd Gerhardt: And Angie, if I understand this right, if his numbers are correct, you’ve got a
market value of $522,000 of building/land in there?
Angie Johnson: The market value for pay 2006 is $560,000.
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Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
Todd Gerhardt: Oh okay. That is different than the number he’s showing.
Angie Johnson: And Mr. Dypwick did bring along the papers that he took these numbers from
so, and we don’t have any tax information here. All I have is a price point…see where the
difference is until we go back to the office.
Todd Gerhardt: Because if you use the 522, that falls in line. If you use the, you know a little
over, about 6% increase over the last 3 years, because the judge’s ruling was for market value in
2002. So you’ve got 3 years to add to that, so you take 6% times 3 years is 18% increase in that
market value. You’re at the 572. Little higher.
Jeff Dypwick: And Angie, did they get a copy of the form that I filled out then for you? The
questionnaire. I’d like each one, if possible, I’d like each one of the council members to have a
copy of that.
Angie Johnson: I don’t know if we can make copies or otherwise…
Mayor Furlong: Well I guess what I would suggest is let’s get all the information. I’d like to get
all the information in advance of us sitting down and looking at it. So whatever he provided,
understanding the judgment. Understanding, as Mr. Gerhardt accurately points out, the
difference in time and property values change from year to year and getting a comprehensive
information on the property so we can look at it in it’s entirety.
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Todd Gerhardt: We’ll bring both the individuals that filed today back to our April 25 meeting.
And now Angie, is the method to close the hearing and then bring back.
Angie Johnson: Just recess.
thth
Todd Gerhardt: Recess the meeting to the 25 and then at the 25 council will serve as the board
again and make final determination on the two filings.
Angie Johnson: And at that time too, if the property owner’s unsatisfied with it, they can always
go onto the County Board. County Board and then of course Tax Court.
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Mayor Furlong: Alright. Well we’ll do our job here first and recess until the 25 then. Be
appropriate.
Angie Johnson: We have one more too.
Mayor Furlong: Oh yeah. Sir. Did you want to provide any oral, did you want to give us any
comments this evening to consider?
Charles Deng: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Please come forward.
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Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
Charles Deng: My name is Charles Deng. I’m living at Woodridge Heights, 6804 Briarwood
Court. My house, the value increase this year is 19.8% increase. Of course that’s including the
basement in the improvement. If I reduce that, my house increase value is 12.154% increase. I
did talk to the Cassie and she left a message that saying my coming today should be the average
is 10.3. I’m not sure that the whole same neighborhood should be increased similar percentage
of value. And ask for the, what’s the rent between the percent, instead of percent average today
to what’s a rent. What’s a minimal? What’s a maximum of the increase existing
neighborhood… Cassie told me, she compared the houses next to my house which was sold 3
months ago. That was a model home with Woodridge Heights and it was sold at $332,350K in
year 2001. And my house value here at year 2001 was 270K. 2001 year. Of course that’s
increase compared to current event. And also I compare the house at 7277 Lake Lucy Road
which in my neighborhood Woodridge Heights, which was sold in December last year at 337K.
That house, it’s well the land itself I checked my file in 1999, when I built the house, the land
itself value is 15K high. The model land is 4K higher. It’s a walkout basement. The
construction is 3.8K higher. They have…that’s 8,000 high. …at least the 35K above my house
value in 1999. And if they sell in December last year is 437, deduct my list is 37K 1999 value.
And now say right now this year value, but I estimate my house value around the 400K. So I’m
not sure currently 421.7K value is increase too much or not. That’s my question. I compare my
neighborhood. I can supply all the details with a copy of the data I have. Second question is, I
talked to Cassie about that my basement improvement is not finished yet. I ask Cassie to come
to visit and she look at it. It’s another…she agreed and she said that she would reduce the value
so she give me 77% percent on the whole value and I’m not sure that’s the right value or not.
That’s my question. Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Good, thank you.
Steve Clay: And the only answer at this point is I couldn’t tell you exactly how he was tracking
those numbers from 1999 but what we’ll do is get some 2004-2005 sales data. Compare that to
his house and see what his house should be worth using current sales data. Bring that back to
you at your next meeting.
Mayor Furlong: I would encourage that and I know we’d also be interested in the information
that you put together too sir so, whether we want to coordinate that and get that in the same
packet Mr. Gerhardt or Angie or however so that we have that information before we meet next
time so we can look at both of those. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Mr. Deng, if you could meet with Justin afterwards, he could make copies of
anything that you’d like to submit.
Mayor Furlong: Excellent. Okay. Is there anybody else at this time that would like to come
forward and provide either written or oral objections to their property values? Former mayors
aren’t allowed to.
Todd Gerhardt: And current.
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Board of Review and Equalization – April 11, 2005
Mayor Furlong: Former.
Steve Clay: One former mayor that won’t be here tonight.
Mayor Furlong: So if there’s nobody else that would like to come forward, is there a motion to
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recess the Board of Review to the 25 to be reconvened at 6:30. Or whatever time is posted.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to recess the Carver County
portion of the meeting until April 25, 2005. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: I’m going to reconvene to consider matters of the Hennepin County properties
and I guess at this point if there’s, what would be the nature of the motion to, for the Hennepin
County properties within the City of Chanhassen to close out the Board of Review for those
properties?
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Councilman Peterson: I’ll move.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Is there any discussion on that motion?
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to close out the Hennepin
County properties. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4
to 0.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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