ARTICLE
Recently, City of Troutdale staff reached out to the Home Builders Association at the direction of the City Council to address an ordinance affecting property taxes on new construction. This ordinance would adopt a different Change Property Ratio (CPR), which factors in the determination of new properties value on the city’s tax roll. City staff was interested to know if the HBA had a position on an ordinance that would alter tax law to raise certain individual’s property taxes. New properties are added to a county’s tax roll at their maximum assessed value (MAV). Ballot Measure 50, added to the Oregon Constitution in 1997, set the formula for how the MAV of properties is determined. The formula places a property in a category (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), and each category has a changed property ratio (CPR). Counties determine the CPR by dividing the average MAV by the average real market value (RMV) of unchanged property in that category in the county. A new property’s MAV is the CPR times the RMV of the new property. During the 2017 State Legislative session, the City of Gresham, the League of Oregon Cities and other stakeholders in east Multnomah County approached Oregon Home Builders Association state lobbyist John Chandler to rectify an unintended consequence of Measure 50. Chandler and the OHBA concurred it as sound legislation. The formula set by Measure 50 creates a county-wide CPR. Because property values have risen dramatically faster in the City of Portland than in neighboring towns in east Multnomah County, the county-wide average has become heavily weighed by Portland property values. The CPR formula used under Measure 50 then becomes skewed for homes currently coming on the tax rolls in areas where home values have not risen rapidly. This leads to cases where existing homes in Troutdale, Gresham, and Wood Village are now paying more in property taxes than some of their new construction neighbors. House Bill 2088 was introduced and passed into law in the State Legislature in 2017. HB 2088 authorized cities within counties with a population greater than 700,000 to adopt an ordinance defining “area” in the Change Property Ratio formula as the city in which the property is located. By adopting such an ordinance for the CPR in Troutdale, properties in the city will be compared to other properties in Troutdale, instead of compared to properties in all of Multnomah County. This will create more equity with property taxes within the city. Both Gresham and Troutdale have now recently adopted ordinances to fix the problem of inequity on their tax rolls. In Gresham, tax bills will fluctuate after this ordinance goes into place, but it will only be to the tune of $50 per new home per year. Overall the city anticipates only a $500 increase in tax revenue per $1,000,000.00 in additional property tax value added to their tax rolls.