NJ.com, 10-Dec-15
By Steve Strunsky
A state judge has ordered Weehawken to complete a new tax map by July 2016, a necessary step in what would be the township's first revaluation in 23 years, the mayor and plaintiffs in a lawsuit confirmed.
The tax map deadline order is the latest update in a suit filed last year charging that Weehawken's failure to conduct a revaluation updating assessments on older properties while assessing new ones at market value has created an unfair tax burden on waterfront property owners.
The four named plaintiffs, who include retired New York Giants great Amani Toomer, are among 175 members of the Concerned Citizens of Weehawken, a group made up of property owners at the Bronwstones at Port Imperial, Henley on Hudson, Riva Point and Avenues waterfront developments.
"Our expert and lawyer were able to successfully challenge the arguments for not completing the revaluation," the citizens group said in a statement. "Our lawyer was able to identify to the judge that there is essentially one person working on the revaluation project and the correct resources have not been allocated to getting it completed."
"The judge informed all parties that she would be signing an order that the tax maps must be completed by July 2016," the statement added. "As part of the same order, it dictates that the appraisal company must also be hired by June 2016 such that the revaluation can be completed effective for calendar year 2017."
The judge is Mary Siobhan Brennan of New Jersey Tax Court, who had already ruled that the revaluation itself must be completed by 2017. The Tax Court administrator in Trenton, Mary Ryan, declined to comment.
Turner confirmed that Brennan imposed the tax map deadline on Tuesday.
Brennan's order followed an unusual proceeding in the case that morning, when the township sponsored a bus tour of Weehawken's residential neighborhoods and commercial districts, hoping to demonstrate the complexity of drafting a new tax map and conducting a revaluation, and the impracticality of the judge's deadlines.
For example, Turner said many condominium buildings in Weehawken are now plotted as a single property on tax maps, either because they were industrial space or apartment complexes, but they would now have to be broken down and mapped as individual properties under current state rules.
"It's very complicated," said Turner. "You have to list each condo, not just the building."
In addition, Turner said about a third of Weehawken's total area, mainly along the waterfront, had been newly developed into townhouses or condominiums where there was once vacant land.
A spokesman for the citizen's group said the township had invited the judge to take the bus tour, but she declined.
Turner, who would not say whether Brennan took the tour, said the township would do its best to comply with the deadlines.
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