Landowners Push for Lower Assessments
Even as Prince William County Executive James H. Mullen scrambles to bridge a projected $13.5 million budget deficit this winter, the county faces a wave of lawsuits from landowners that could send that figure even higher.</br></br>In the latest potential fiscal hangover from the go-go 1980s, the landowners allege that Prince William overvalued vast parcels of raw or partly developed land during the boom years before the 1990 real estate market collapse. They further allege that the county has failed to ratchet down those values quickly enough since then.</br></br>"Certainly you could see millions of dollars of reduced assessments," if judges agree with land owners, said Assistant County Attorney Ross Horton. While the tax impact is less clear, he said, "Obviously, a lot of money is involved."</br></br>About 20 suits so far, with more expected depending on the success of the first ones, have challenged assessments on about 50 of the county's 80,000-plus land parcels, mostly large projects bought between 1986 and 1990 on the county's western end, Horton and Finance Director John Wenderski said.</br></br>In the first case to be settled, owner Richmarr Construction Corp. won a whopping 33 percent devaluation of a 584-acre parcel on Linton Hall Road last year. That one-third reduction meant a $608,000 tax cut, covering assessments from 1989 to 1992.