Council Grants Booker Aide Tax Abatement Last Week

Modia Butler, Mayor Cory Booker’s chief of staff, was granted a five-year tax abatement by the Newark Municipal Council on the Chestnut Street condominium he purchased in March.

An abatement is temporary relief from property taxes where a property owner pays an ever-increasing percentage of assessed taxes every year for the life of the abatement until reaching the full amount. Abatements apply to new construction or to properties that have been substantially improved and are a common way to encourage development in the city, said Business Administrator Julien Neals.

The council granted the abatement during its meeting last week, when it also approved abatements to a number of other property owners. The council routinely grants abatements to several property owners a month.

The property, a unit in a complex located at 411-419 Chestnut St., was purchased for $200,000. The entire complex, which contains 18 units, qualified for an abatement when it was constructed in 2007, but each individual condo owner must also still apply, Neals said. That application must then be approved by a vote of the municipal council.

According to tax assessor’s records, 12 of the complex’s 18 condo owners have received abatements over the years, with Butler’s being the most recent. While all the units qualify for an abatement, an owner is not required to apply for one.

The abatement at 411-419 Chestnut applies only to the “improvement,” the condo itself, and not the land, which is valued at $100,000 and for which Butler will be assessed the full amount in taxes, said Romal Bullock, the city’s tax assessor.

When word of Butler’s abatement spread it raised questions among some members of the public who wondered if the mayor’s top aide was getting preferential treatment. As the owner of  a property that had already qualified for an abatement, however, Butler said he was merely receiving the benefit any purchaser of that property would have been entitled to.

“There are 18 units in the building and all of them have the five-year abatement,” Butler said. “I’m not being treated specially or differently from anyone else.”