WPost: N.H. Puts a Price on Panoramas

washingtonpost.com

N.H. Puts a Price on Panoramas
Property Taxes Soar Based on Scenery

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; A01


PLAINFIELD, N.H. -- The view from Brad Wilder's hillside house is a
270-degree panorama of New England high country: the rugged peak of
Mount Ascutney, the reddening leaves and white-painted houses of the
Connecticut River valley and -- on some lucky fall days -- migratory
geese cruising by at eye level.

His vista is stunning. But you can't say it's priceless.

Wilder's view has actually been valued right down to the dollar:
According to the town of Plainfield, it is worth $237,265. In 2003,
town officials deemed it a bonus feature of his home, like a third
bathroom or marble countertops, and ordered him to pay about $4,700 in
property taxes for it.

Which left Wilder with a lot of questions.

Chief among them: How do you value a view?

That is the strange conundrum that is captivating New Hampshire at the
moment, as town officials have embarked on an controversial quest to
quantify -- and then tax -- the beauty of their residents' vistas.

Now, landowners with high-value views are livid about their tax bills,
and they have started pressing officials to explain just how, exactly,
they managed to distill the ineffable majesty of nature into dollar
values.

Turns out, it is not a totally exact science.

"It's more of an 'I know it when I see it' kind of thing," said Thomas
Holmes, the assessor for the town of Conway, N.H.

The problem in New Hampshire is not simply that "view factors" are
being used in property appraisal -- that is by no means unique to the
Granite State. In most places, experts say, if a property's view is
good enough to make a buyer pay something extra for it, an assessor
will try to estimate that something extra and include it in the
property's assessed value.

In the Washington area, for instance, an Annapolis home with a view of
the Severn River might be worth 15 percent more than a similar house
with a view of a cul-de-sac.

But New Hampshire is different, because the state's views have become
so sky-high valuable, and so fast. Statewide, one assessor said the
maximum value added because of a view has jumped from a maximum of
around $20,000 about 10 years ago to $200,000 or more now.

One example among many: In Winchester, N.H., Bennet Nicholson's view of
the Connecticut River valley helped bump his property value up from
about $98,000 in 2002 to about $273,000 in 2003 -- and more than
doubled his property taxes.

"There's no way that I could keep on paying $10,000 a year in taxes,"
he said. Nicholson left the house where he had planned to spend the
rest of his life and moved to Canada's Prince Edward Island.

The change has been blamed in part on New Hampshire's lack of a sales
tax or personal income tax, which means that property taxes bear much
of the revenue burden. In recent years, the state has been pushing
towns to keep their property assessments up to date so that none of
this crucial revenue is missed.

At the same time, the state's real estate market was being knocked out
of whack by an influx of outsiders seeking vacation, weekend or
permanent homes -- often with a view.

"They come up from down below," said Guy Petell, the state's chief of
property appraisals. He meant places such as Boston, Connecticut and
New York, with more money but smaller hills. "They want to be able to
look around the world."

So here, property assessors say, was their assignment: Try to judge
each of the state's properties, and especially each vista, through the
eyes of the view-hungry buyers who were driving the market. There were
no state guidelines to help them compare views.

"I hate saying that it's subjective," said Gary J. Roberge, chief
executive officer of the company that valued Wilder's view. "But it
is."

There are, in some cases, rules of thumb that appraisers can turn to
for help. For instance, a view of a "name mountain," such as Mount
Washington or others in the famed Presidential Range, is usually worth
more than a view of a less-famous peak. Also, 90 degrees of view is
better than 45, and a river and hills are usually worth more than hills
alone.

But that is about as hard and fast as the business of valuing views
seems to get.

In an interview at his offices in Chichester, N.H., Roberge went
through pages from a "View Manual," showing a range of vistas rated
middling to spectacular.

There was a "300" rated property, whose view had a barn up close and a
mountain in the distance. "You've got a little bit of the horizon,"
Roberge said. That little bit, in this case, was enough view to triple
the land's value -- a difference of $96,000 or more for an average
property in a place such as Plainfield, he said.

Then Roberge got to a "500" view, with a lot more horizon and distance.
"It just goes on forever," Roberge said. It would add $192,000 to the
same property.

He looked at a "600" view, which was a panorama of mountains and
receding hills such as Wilder's in Plainfield. "If you were standing up
there looking at it, it would blow you away," Roberge said. For that
quality, Roberge said, land such as this would be worth six times its
original value, for an increase of $240,000 just because of the view.

To which some landowners say: That's all there is to it?

"The formula sucks pond water," said John Frado, 60, whose property in
Winchester jumped in value by $70,000 because of another assessing
company's opinion of its overlook.

When Wilder contested his valuation in court, a local judge came to a
similar, though more decorously worded, conclusion: The appraisal was
"not supported by evidence of anything other than the subjective
judgment of the appraising company." He ordered it reduced, though the
case has been appealed.

After protests across the state, state lawmakers are now considering
ways to ensure that, in the future, assessors give more evidence to
support the values they place on views.

"What do you see?" asked state Rep. Betsey L. Patten (R). "I want you
to explain."

For now, though, what residents call the "view tax" still has many
longtime residents worrying that the mountain on the distance will soon
force them off the land beneath their feet. When farmer John Lynch, 65,
found that his view had been valued at about $65,000, he confronted
someone from the assessing company: "How do you think we're going to
hang on here?"

Lynch, who lives in the town of Hill, N.H., said that one of the odd
parts about this controversy is that, with his attention always on the
land, he rarely spends time gazing out at his valuable view.

"You very seldom look," Lynch said. "Well, to see the weather or the
sunset . . . ." Suddenly, he was troubled by the thought of a tax on
sunsets.

"Oh," he said, "don't tell them about that."