112811 Wooster Senior Village tax incentive request rejected

  • By Sharon Haught
  • November 22, 2011
  • 288
                        
Summary: Wooster Senior Village is a no go without a requested real property tax abatement. A tax abatement request by the Cleveland area developer of an apartment complex for low-to-moderate-income senior citizens has been rejected by Wooster City Council. By a vote of four to three with representatives Mike Buytendyk, Mark Cavin, Barb Knapic and Jon Ulbright casting negative votes and Jon Ansel, David Silvestri and Jeff Steiner casing positive votes, council denied a request by developer Tim Morgan for a ten year, fifty percent real property tax abatement on a 48 unit complex Wooster Senior Village planned to build on Akron Road near the Winchester Woods Apartments. According to Ansel, Morgan’s plan called for “an estimated $5.5 million investment in an apartment complex for retired or senior eligible residents.” Ansel noted that the project would have served “an applicant range of $26,222 annually up to a maximum of $43,440 annually” with rent ranging from $335 to $600 a month net utilities. According to Morgan, “because the rents are pushed down to an artificially low level to make them affordable to middle income seniors the ability to have the tax abatement from the otherwise full boat assessment helps make the project financially viable.” Morgan noted that without the incentive “we would not move forward” adding “without the tax abatement the project from a financial standpoint doesn’t work.” During the pre-vote discussion Knapic noted that “one of the concerns we have is we are basically creating a housing development for people who do not contribute income tax to the city but will be using city services.” Knapic also expressed concern over ongoing maintenance of the facility by an absentee owner, a view shared by Buytendyk. “My biggest concern is that after the investors get their money back that this thing is abandoned and neglected and goes through multiple hands,” said Buytendyk. Buytendyk also expressed concern over the negative effect on Wooster Community Hospital should out-of-county residents flock to the new complex. “One of my concerns is that this is going to be attracting people from out of county,” said Buytendyk adding “the last thing the City of Wooster needs is people coming from out of county to add to the Medicaid and Medicare patients at the hospital because we lose money on those people significantly.” Additional stress on city services – particularly EMT services - was also a concern for Buytendyk. Throughout the discussion council representatives weighed the pros and cons of granting the abatement request. According to Ansel the new project would have brought four new jobs – two part time and two full time - to the community and additional tax revenue to the city and the Wooster City School District. Ansel noted that the land currently generates about $800 in annual property taxes, $650 of which goes to the school district. “With the 50 percent abatement…it would generate $526,000 additional tax dollars (over the ten year abatement period) of which $410,790 would go the Wooster City Schools,” said Ansel adding “the nice thing about this request is that since it is a senior retirement village there would be no additional stress put on the city schools.” “After the ten year period it would go up to $820,000 over the following ten year period, so additional revenue to the schools over the 20 year cycle…of about $1.3 million versus the ($16,000) that would be derived over the vacant lot we currently have in that corridor.” “The issue we have philosophically is the additional duress this type of expansion creates on our city services,” said Ansel.


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load