By Michael Gelbwasser, Contributing Writer
Northborough – The average Northborough single-family homeowner faces a $260 increase in their total property tax bill, “about $42 greater than what we had forecast at town meeting,” Town Administrator John Coderre told the Board of Selectmen Nov. 24.
The average single-family home now is valued at $387,617, up 3.3 percent, Coderre said during the board’s annual tax classification public hearing with the board of assessors.
The new average bill of $6,485 is based on a new single tax rate of $16.73 that the board of assessors recommended. The new rate is 14 cents higher than the current rate of $16.59.
The annual average tax bill has gone up $98 per year over the past five years, which is “very reasonable, very affordable,” Coderre said.
Selectmen voted after the hearing to support the assessors’ recommendations: to continue with the current, single tax rate for all Northborough property owners, and to not adopt exemptions for residential and small commercial properties.
Northborough selectmen have always supported a single tax rate, Coderre said. State law has allowed shifting part of the tax burden from residential property owners to commercial and industrial properties since 1979, he said. But doing so would not generate additional tax revenue, he added.
Selectmen Vice Chair Jeff Amberson noted that Northborough has many small, family-run businesses.
“Any shift artificially changing the mix would have a huge effect on those people,” he said.
“You’re not just putting it to Walmart. You’re putting it to a lot of your neighbors. One of the things I hear from folks in town is they don’t want to lose those businesses,” he added.
Coderre said Northborough’s list of top 10 taxpayers is unchanged since last year, and in the “same order.”
Northborough Retail Properties LLC, which has the Northborough Crossing shopping center, is first, and would pay $1,867,165 under the new tax rate, according to a chart that was part of the public hearing presentation. AVB Northborough – Avalon Bay — is second, at $929,169. Iron Mountain Information Management Inc. is third, at $646,484.
“Our top 15 taxpayers are the same as they were last year, and the year before,” Coderre added.
The list is diverse, featuring such specialties as retail, research and development, biotech and shipping, he said.
“The beauty of it is, when we go out for bond rating, when we look at how stable our community is from a tax base standpoint, you want diversity. We have diversity. We don’t have one major company in town that if their industry goes under – Hewlett-Packard, or Digital, or 3M, the ones that you think of over the years — they pull up and leave the town, and all of a sudden, there’s this major hole in tax base, we don’t have that,” Coderre said.
“Our tax base is strong, it continues to grow, it is diverse, and is stable.”
