Erik the Read
Property in and around Saratoga has been a topic of discussion lately at town meetings and amongst our citizens. Questions seem to revolve around the availability and pricing of housing, residential lots and commercial lots. There is also talk of assessing fees on vacant land such as a sewer service fee, which is already in town ordinance 828 but apparently has not been enforced.
In my research I looked at maps in Saratoga Town Hall, data provided to me by the Carbon County Assessor’s Office, the Wyoming CAMA database and the Wyoming Multiple Listing Service (MLS) . As often happens in this type of research, the numbers don’t exactly match between the different resources, so, I will mostly use information from the county assessor and the MLS.
Data from the assessor shows 1,544 lots platted within the municipal limits of Saratoga. The maps at town hall show that there are over 800 vacant lots in town with over 700 of those lots in areas zoned as single family or medium density residential. For this article I will use the data from the county assessor which produced a number of 355 vacant lots, 226 of which are in residential zones. County data also shows 27 vacant commercial lots and two vacant industrial lots. These number seem to indicate that there is land available for both housing and business growth, although industrial lots are hard to come by.
A search of the Wyoming MLS shows that there are 31 houses and 72 undeveloped residential lots on the market in Saratoga. The 72 lots available constitute less than one-third (31.8 percent) of potentially available land based on county data. In last weeks Saratoga Sun there were only two houses and one apartment listed for rent.
In the commercial/retail market there are only two lots for sale and 11 buildings in Saratoga according to the MLS. There is only one multifamily property on the MLS which houses four rental units. There are no listings in Saratoga for commercial, mixed use or residential developments or industrial zoned land.
Who owns all of this vacant land? In my discussions with people around town I have heard that developers and builders own a significant number of lots and that non-residents who have inherited the land or are speculators hold many of the lots.
Here’s what the county data says: Of the 1,544 lots in Saratoga 476 are owned by people whose address, for tax purposes, is outside of the Upper Platte Valley. That is approximately 31 percent of the property in town. Out of state owners account for 305 (19.7 of all Saratoga property) lots. This means that 1,068 lots are owned by Saratoga residents, or people who at least pay their taxes from a Saratoga address.
Vacant lots are owned by Saratoga addressees (150 lots or 42.2 percent of vacant land), out of Valley owners (206 lots or 58.0 percent of vacant land) and out of state owners (126 lots or 35.5 percent of vacant lots).
These data seem to indicate that while local builders and developers may have amassed some land in Saratoga, folks that don’t live in the Valley are holding on to more land than locals.
I don’t have an issue with non-locals owning land. Not being local doesn’t mean you don’t have an interest in the success and growth of Saratoga. I’m simply using these numbers to address questions I have heard and provide some food for thought.
If we somehow increase the cost of holding on to vacant property it is not necessarily going to be all on the backs of Saratoga residents.
Also, scanning the data from the county there is no one landowner that stands out as having a disproportionate number of lots. The landowner with the most lots listed in the Carbon County database is International Resort Properties, LLC based out of Thornton, Colo. which owns the Saratoga Resort and Spa.
So, back to the question of raising the cost of holding on to vacant land. Right now it is very inexpensive to sit on a piece of property in Saratoga. Using the county property tax rate of 9.5 percent of assessed value, taxes on vacant Saratoga land range from $16.15 to $3,530.58 with the average tax rate on the bottom 75 percent of vacant lots coming to $186.
Our tax rates are low. According to the Tax Foundation Wyoming ranks 40 out of 50 states for property tax rates. Tax-rate.org shows that Carbon county pays less in property tax than 83 percent of the 3,143 counties for which the data could be gleaned. I like my taxes and service fees low, and so do many of you based on the comments on the master plan survey that was just completed.
I am, however willing to pay my fair share to see my community flourish, or at least stay in the black.
A 2012 article published by the International City/County Management Association proposes a dual tax system for property owners. One part of the tax system would be a fee for vacant land based on utilities and services available. Town maps show that almost all properties have water and sewer available even if the taps have not been installed. The second part of the proposed tax system is for improvements to properties and comes at a lower rate than the base property tax. The idea is that not having to pay significantly more tax for improved properties incentivizes owners to build on and clean up lots. This is an issue for the county to think about as vacant land is a county-wide or state-wide issue and tax decisions should come at those levels.
Now for the issue that has many folks riled up. I have talked to one landowner who is selling around 30 lots and heard from other builders and developers in town that they do not support implementing the sewer fee on vacant land. As I noted above, that fee is written into Ordinance 828, a relatively recent ordinance signed into effect on Nov. 18, 2014.
The ordinance states, “The monthly charge for sewer service charged by the Town of Saratoga for business, commercial and all other users shall be as follows: Business, commercial and all other users. Base rate of Twenty-Eight Dollars and Fourteen Cents ($28.14) per month, or a minimum of eighty percent (80%) of the user’s water bill for the identical property for the same month, whichever is greater. The basic fee of Twenty-Eight Dollars and Fourteen Cents ($28.14) per month shall be assessed by the Town of Saratoga as the minimum monthly fee, whether or not the water service is being provided to the same property.
If the 355 vacant lots were charged the $28.14 sewer fee per month it would generate $119,876.40 per year for the town to maintain and upgrade its wastewater system. That money could even be leveraged as matching funds in grant proposals to generate more working capital for the town.
So, questions remain. Do we want to start enforcing codes already on the books, look at a new tax structure, or let simple economics work out Saratoga’s situation with vacant land and lack of revenue?
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