SARANAC LAKE - State land property taxes was the subject of a conference Friday at the Harrietstown Town Hall.
Organized by ADK Action, the meeting attracted more than 100 Adirondack Park residents, including locally elected officials and assessors.
"There was a genuine consensus that the system's broken, that the state land is valuated differently across the Park," said Lee Keet, a member of the ADK Action steering committee. "And that is a function of how well the towns have been able to negotiate with the office of real property services and the strength of their local assessors."
Along with Keet, the ADK action steering committee consists of Dick Kibben, Jim Schoff, Marsha Stanley and Dave and Phile Wolfe.
Dave Wolfe was the spokesman for the Harrietstown residents who filed a lawsuit to overturn Harrietstown's 2006 property tax revaluation. The group unsuccessfully filed two article 78 lawsuits trying to overturn the assessments. The most recent lawsuit was dismissed in May because of a technicality.
In the Adirondack Park, towns can have up to 90 percent state land. Because the forest preserve cannot be developed, this can leave towns with a small tax base, potentially limiting the amount of funds for services.
"There was a general consensus that this is part of a larger problem of the tax load on the private citizens across the state, but especially in the Park, where the burden has increased and the number of state mandates has increased," Keet said.
Keet said his group hopes to work with other existing organizations around the Park that are studying property taxes, including the Common Ground Alliance.
Dave Wolfe said one of the reasons for what he said are low state land values is that the "intrinsic values" of the lands aren't being taken into account. "They are a missing a whole value component we call intrinsic value," he said. "One of the examples is conservation easements."
Conservation easements allow for various recreation uses on the lands.
But Wolfe didn't place blame on the assessors with the Office of Real Property, only the system.
"The guys who are doing the work are doing a very good job with what they've got," he said.
Contact Mike Lynch at 891-2600 ext. 28 or mlynch@adirondack
dailyenterprise.com.