Nassau County Executive Curran Freezes Property Values In 2022-23

MASSAPEQUA, NY – As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause uncertainty and economic hardships for many local residents, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran announced plans on Wednesday to freeze current property values in 2022-23 at the previous year’s level to provide some stability for residential and commercial property owners.

Curran said that the pandemic has created unsteadiness in the real estate market and for business owners, which has impacted property values. As of Wednesday, Nassau County’s COVID-19 positivity rate stood at 4.1 percent and its seven-day rolling average stood at 4.2 percent, which is well below the state’s positivity rate of 4.96 percent. But earlier this week, Curran said that she remains concerned over the way the county's COVID-19 and hospitalization rates are tending.

The pandemic has caused the prices within the local housing market to spike, Curran said Wednesday, which has created unbalance in how property values are determined. So due to the uncertainty and chaos created by the pandemic, Curran announced that the property assessment for 2022-23 that will be released by county officials in early January will go unchanged from values for 2021-22.

The freeze, Curran said, assures that the assessment would not be based on the “current, chaotic real estate market values caused by the unprecedented impact of the pandemic,” Curran said Wednesday in order to “give people a little bit of certainty in a very uncertain time.”

According to county officials, the tentative 2021-22 tax roll raised home values across Nassau County by an average of 3 percent. Curran ordered the reassessment of property values in 2018 under which homes across the county would be taxed at their full market value by the end of a five-year period.

In addition to the pandemic causing housing costs in Nassau County to spike, the dramatic increase in sales prices of homes across the county has unfairly skewed property assessments, Curran said. For commercial properties, Curran said, the collapse of revenue streams during the pandemic has made income and expense information for business owners remains unavailable.

“By temporarily pausing property assessments, we can allow families and businesses a little more certainty so they can focus on the task of rebuilding their finances at a time of enormous economic uncertainty,” Curran said.

This article originally appeared on the Massapequa Patch