We’ve noted that the city’s revamp of tax breaks for historic homes has taken so long, it may soon qualify for an abatement itself. That was borne out last Thursday, when, as we also noted, we learned changes would now be postponed until July. After the fold, let’s hear from item sponsor Bill Spelman on why.
It looks like the lawsuit from Mike Levy, et al., is still a deciding factor in the postponement, as it was last time the item got punted. But, as he’s wont to do, Spelman painted a more holistic picture of the program. From the dais, and from the transcript:
Since 1978 the City of Austin has recognized that our historic landmark process and program puts certain demands on owners of historic properties, which reduced their property rights and increased their maintenance costs. The reason we have a tax exemption program for owners of historic properties is to recompense them for the increase in property rights and for the increase in maintenance costs. Before us today is a resolution which would adjust those tax benefits to be more in keeping with what we have come to understand those property rights and those maintenance costs are actually worth. But there’s been a challenge recently as part of the recent court case that suggests we need to go a little bit further than that, and to individually tailor our tax benefits to be consistent with the individual property rights, reductions and maintenance costs associated with individual properties. I want to … ensure that the city of Austin is acting in a way that is consistent with the Texas tax code, and we will be getting further direction from a district court judge on this matter after a temporary injunction hearing which I’m now given to understand is going to take place in July. … With that in mind since we’re going to get further instructions from a district court judge, or there’s a good chance of that in July, it will determine whether our current program is consistent with the tax code or not, I would like to postpone further action on this resolution until our meeting of July 28th, but at the same time not to wait just for the judge, but also to direct staff to, on its own, review the city’s property tax exemption process for historic landmarks as set out in city codes. And to determine if changes need to be made to ensure that the process is and stays consistent with the Texas tax code section 11.24. So postponed until the 28th.
In other news, no council meeting this week, but the draft agenda’s already been posted for the gang’s June 9 meeting, their second to last before their summer hiatus.
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This article appears in May 27 • 2011.