Wednesday, February 13, 2013
In his video blog, Collingswood Mayor James Maley gives a walking tour of the property and explains the borough perspective on its sale to Kitchen & Associates.
Last week, borough commissioners announced that Collingswood had closed an $800,000 deal with local architectural firm of Kitchen & Associates for the sale of the 'Old' Zane School, a building the firm had rented for the past 15 years. Along with the sale, the municipal government also approved a 10-year PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) tax abatement for Kitchen & Associates. Under terms of the deal, Kitchen & Associates will pay about 30 percent of the assessed value of the property, ramping up to full assessment by the 2023. Those conditions brought criticism from a handful of Patch readers last week, including resident Joseph Dinella, who sent along a letter to the editor: PILOTs are the crack-cocaine of redevelopment. Developers NEED …
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Did the borough get fair value for the once-dilapidated historic building? There's a lot to consider in making that call.
Our report on the sale of the “Old” Zane School building to the architectural firm of Kitchen & Associates drew comments from a number of readers. Many railed against what they perceived to be the artificially low value of the transaction. Some decried the 10-year PILOT agreement (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) into which the borough entered with the firm as an overly favorable arrangement. In both cases, those instincts are spot on. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s anything nefarious at work. “The Zane School hasn’t had taxes paid for 60 to 70 years,” Mayor James Maley told Patch on Wednesday. “So in order to make the whole deal work, the purchase price is based on the value of the property as determined by the lease we have in …
Taxpayers may have differences of opinion on the value of a PILOT agreement, said Superintendent Scott Oswald, but abatements don't affect the school budget.
The “biggest and longest” PILOT agreement in Collingswood, said Mayor James Maley, is that into which it entered with the Ingerman Group, the property management company that will complete Phases III and IV of the LumberYard project before moving its home offices the first floor of the new building. Next is the 10-year agreement with Kitchen & Associates, and then there are 5-year PILOTS with new businesses, a standard offer “that anybody in town can get,” Maley said, including Dr. John B. Tedeschi of Advocare, who is building a new office in town. But the idea that any PILOT agreement costs the Collingswood school district by keeping taxes off the books “is totally, completely wrong,” Maley said. “The impact is that you don’t have a …
PILOT agreements lessen debt obligation for private interests but cost taxpayers in the long run, argues Joseph Dinella.
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Thursday, February 7
To the editor: Debt is at the heart of the matter. Unrestrained and unaccountable borrowing for reasons not related to purpose of local government—which is providing for public health and public safety—have resulted in a debt service that is twice that of neighboring communities. The Old Zane School sure does look a hell of lot better than it used to. But these aesthetics cost taxpayers $1.8 million over 25 years, which is the stated useful life of the project in Ordinance 1161, which authorized the borrowing in August 1998. We are now throwing our money away by selling it for less than half of its $1,959,900 assessed value. Not a very smart move for taxpayers during a depression. PILOTs are the crack-cocaine of redevelopment. Developers …
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The architectural firm paid $800K for the property and will enjoy a 10-year PILOT agreement with the borough, while still allowing use of its parking lot during off-hours.
Fifteen years ago, Collingswood borough commissioner Joan Leonard said, the “Old” Zane School on Haddon Avenue was a rotten dump with a caved-in roof that doubled as a pigeon roost. “The building was literally falling down,” Leonard told the public at Monday’s commissioners meeting. “It was frightening.” Leonard, who lives across the street from the property, speaks of what she knows. Such a historic building (it dates back to 1905) deserved a better fate. So Leonard was among those most excited when the borough announced that it had come to terms with the current tenants of the building, the architectural firm Kitchen & Associates, to sell the property she'd helped restore 15 years ago. In addition to the $800,000 asking price, Kitchen & …
Interested Bystander
7:14 am on Sunday, February 17, 2013
??...nobody who rents ever pays taxes, so what's the beef? The town took over the building and owned it - you don't pay taxes to yourself. more ›