Agenda - 02-21-2017 - 4-c - 2017 Orange County Revaluation Results

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1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: February 21, 2017 Action Agenda Item No. 4-c SUBJECT: 2017 Orange County Revaluation Results DEPARTMENT: Tax Administration ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Dwane Brinson, Tax Administrator, (919) 245-2726 PURPOSE: To receive an overview of the statistical results of the 2017 countywide revaluation. BACKGROUND: North Carolina counties must conduct a revaluation at least once every eight years. Orange County's last revaluation took effect January 1, 2009. The effective appraisal date of the 2017 revaluation is January 1, 2017. Orange County has approximately 55,500 real property parcels. During the revaluation process, each of those parcels has been modified to reflect a current estimate of market value. Tax office staff began working on the 2017 revaluation in 2014. In January 2016, the tax office proactively sent each real property owner a snapshot of the property's public record and a request to review the information for discrepancies, and return it to the Tax Office with any discrepancies noted. This allowed for appraisal staff to verify and ensure the records were accurate in preparation for the revaluation. Prior to the 2017 revaluation, Orange County had only two defined neighborhoods set up in the appraisal database. A neighborhood is basically defined as a group of similar properties. A common example of a neighborhood would be a subdivision. As part of the process, staff defined more neighborhoods, thereby allowing better organization and pricing models for the current and future revaluations. The County database now has 975 identified neighborhoods. A significant by-product of the revaluation is the improvement of the building use information in the tax database. In the past, requests for information such as the percentage of residential versus commercial in the tax base required Information Technologies programming and assistance. Throughout the 2017 revaluation, staff proactively invested the time to identify and code each of the 55,500 parcels with its corresponding building use such as single-family residential, restaurant, or student housing. Reporting for 2017 and forward will be much easier and more accurate because of these efforts.