SURE WE ALL OWN OUR OWN HOMES AND HAVE BURGEONING 401kS, BUT WE'RE BROKE, NO?:

West Windsor's Dilemma of Values (Kristen Fountain, 6/25/06, Valley News)

The Hales have lived and farmed in the shadow of Mount Ascutney since the Revolutionary War.

Brothers from Scotland settled in the western part of the town, said Maria Hale, 67, who lives along one of the long fields off the Brownsville-Hartland Road that the family has owned for generations. Summer days find her brother, Joel Hale, 71, outside his home down the street doing what he has done since he was a child: tending the herd.

Unbeknownst to them, however, the ground beneath their feet has been turning to black gold.

In recent years, out-of-towners from Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and Florida and elsewhere have purchased tracts in the surrounding hills for $10,000 to $20,000 an acre, using them for homes and weekend havens. Their willingness to pay such hefty sums has sent the values of large parcels sky high.

West Windsor residents recently learned that a townwide revaluation completed in May has made the combined taxable value of their properties 2½ times greater than before. But that increase pales compared with the shock being felt by residents such as the Hales, whose farm- and forestland is appreciating at a much faster pace because of its potential value as a country estate.

“Strange world,” Joel Hale said recently, shaking his head as he stared out at the sun-dappled pasture from the vantage point of his tractor seat. To him and his cows, he said, “it ain't worth any more than it was.”

But according to the revaluation, his 236 acres, previously assessed for tax purposes at $330,000, is now valued at almost $2.8 million. Their previous tax bill was around $8,000, said Joel Hale. This year, it could be $40,000 or higher. [...]

Josephine Bernatchez, 52, and her brother David own the land their father bought for a dairy farm in 1922. Their 205 acres on Bryant Road increased in value in the reassessment from $283,400 to $2,373,800, making her worry. “We're not among the people with a lot of money,” she said. “Are we going to lose our homes?”

Lesson One: Never let a cow make an important financial decision.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 25, 2006 10:55 AM