I'll ask everyone to contain themselves as I bring the news that the city has
posted its proposed tax assessments for 2012, and the tally for Near Southeast's properties as I calculate it comes to around
$5.99 billion, a whopping 0.001 percent lower than last year's $6.001 billion proposed value, a number which was then revised down thanks to landowner appeals to a final 2011 number of about $5.81 billion.
I've
pulled together a chart of the assessed values of the neighborhoods' shiny new/ish office buildings and non-DCHA non-condo multi-unit residential buildings, showing their 2011 proposed assessment, along with the final 2011 number and today's new 2012 proposed number. The proposed 2012 valuations for this specific sub-group of properties totals $1.77 billion, which is up a tad from the $1.75 billion proposed for 2010--but which ended up being dropped to a $1.58 billion final 2011 valuation after appeals.
The expansion in the neighborhood's tax base in terms of new residents has become clear as well: Looking at the numbers for the
Capitol Quarter and
Velocity condos parcels: in 2007, before construction got underway, they were assessed at around $92 million; for 2012, the proposed value is around $282 million. (It should be noted that Capitol Quarter's taxes don't go into the general fund, because owners there actually are governed by a
Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT] structure that uses the tax proceeds to pay down the debt on the bonds used to finance the development.)
As for the number everyone always wants to know about:
Nationals Park remains valued at $999,982,800, unchanged since the first time the ballpark's assessment appeared, back in 2009.
Yearly Near Southeast Proposed Assessments
2002: $221M *
2003: $428M *
2004: $642M
2005: $771M
2006: $896M *
2007: $1.78B
2008: $2.54B
2009: $4.47B
2010: $6.01B
2011: $6.00B
2012: $5.99B
* Includes a mix of proposed and revised assessments |
And it's likely that the neighborhood will continue to be home to the most valuable privately held property in the city, as the
US Department of Transportation HQ has been assessed at $662.7 million, about $73 million higher than the final 2011 number that made it the most valuable property in the city in 2010,
according to WBJ.
I keep a database of neighborhood assessments going back to 2001, although it only took about eight years for me to grasp the concept that the proposed numbers released in March aren't always the final ones, so it was just in 2010 that I started tracking both proposed and year-end numbers. (Though it must be said that during the Bubble Years, landowners weren't quite so vigorous about challenging their assessments.) Plus for a long time I got the years wrong when referencing: numbers posted by the city in one year are labeled as being the proposed/actual value for the following year. And some tax squares inside my strict Near Southeast boundaries escaped my attention for a few years early on. But I don't think the numbers are so out-of-whack that they can't be compared in a general way, as long as you keep the caveats in mind; with that admonition, check out the table at right for the yearly numbers.
And, of course, it should be noted that since large portions of the neighborhood's land is owned by the Feds (*cough*Navy Yard*cough*), there aren't taxes being paid on every dime of these assessment numbers.
If your envelope hasn't already arrived, or if you want to see how your number stacks up against your neighbors, you can
search the assessments database yourself.