City Stuck With Lower Property Values

City Council members indicated they wanted to take him up on that offer. 

Deputy Mayor Bill Phillips last month questioned how Wells calculated assessment of the city’s property values.The value drop translates to a loss of about $163,260 in tax revenue available for the upcoming budget year, which starts Oct. 1

Wells, a former Pasco County commissioner, said he understood that the most difficult part of the job “is figure out what to do with what we have.”

He said he uses the same methods to assess New Port Richey’s value as he does to assess values across the entire county. He monitors sales, he said, and for the most part, that’s how he comes up with the county tax rolls.

“Wells is not picking on New Port Richey,” he said. “This is a great little town, just like Dade City where I live. I would never do anything to hurt New Port Richey, but I have to create a tax roll based on what’s there."

Wells said that homestead exemptions play a big role in how his tax rolls shake out.  He said 70 percent of single-family homes in Pasco have homestead exemptions. It's unclear how many of New Port Richey's homes have a homestead exemption.

City Councilman Jeff Starkey brought up the issue of looking at whether there’s any homestead fraud in the city.

Wells said he would be happy to have a member of his staff focus on looking for homestead fraud in New Port Richey. 

“I’ll run every homestead in New Port Richey,” he said.

Florida’s homestead rule allows for up to $50,000 in tax exemptions on a property that qualifies. The median value for a New Port Richey home is $54,368, less than the median values of a home in Pasco, which is $110,000. 

New Port Richey also lost Community Hospital last year. It was reportedly the city’s biggest taxpayer. It moved most of its services to Trinity, where it now does business as Medical Center of Trinity.

In 2006, the hospital was valued at $24 million. The property’s current value is $6.3 million. 

Wells pointed out that New Port Richey still has Morton Plant Hospital in the city limits, but it is tax exempt. That’s $34 million off the tax rolls.  The city has old homes and little new growth. Demographics have changed. Houses have become rentals.

The U.S. Census of 2010 reveals some staggering numbers about properties in the city. It shows that 41 percent of the homes in New Port Richey are rentals. Vacant homes make up an additional 20 percent.

Rental rates for office space around the former Community Hospital property are 33 percent lower than the county’s.  Rental rates downtown are 29 percent lower than the county average.

Wells said it takes decades to enact a turnaround in a struggling area, but he had more to share than doom and gloom. He reflected on how St. Petersburg made the redevelopment of the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel the focal point of the rejuvenation of a depressed area. He noted that something similar could happen with the Hacienda Hotel in New Port Richey.

"If you could bring it back into the grand hotel it once was, I think businessmen and businesswoman would flock into town to invest money," he said.

Some of the factors impacting city’s value, according to Wells:

• The average single family home in New Port Richey was built in 1970. The average single family home in Pasco was built in 1988.
• 81 percent of all new construction New Port Richey is tax exempt
• The median value (sale price) of a single-family home in Pasco County is $110,000. The median value for a New Port Richey home is $54,368.
• Properties that are 100 percent exempt from taxation in the city account for 14.6 percent of New Port Richey’s just value. However, properties that are 100 percent exempt from taxation in Pasco County account for just 8 percent of the county’s rolls.