Saugerties: Not for the Middle Class?

  |  March 14, 2012

Flickr/Dougtone

That’s what one ex-resident looking to return feels after perusing the area for affordable houses. Or, rather, what he wrote about in the Saugerties Times after perusing the area for reasonably priced houses with affordable taxes. “We have been looking at properties from one end of town to the other, being consistently shocked at the tax rates,” he writes. “As example, one typical raised ranch in Barclay Heights is assessed for $212,500, (real value about $195,000) 2012 taxes: $7,400! On the other end of the scale, though not in our category, is a home currently listed for $3.9 million. Set on 50 acres, the 2010 taxes were $12,056. In 2011; they were reduced to $8,622. To my mind, a sale price difference of $3.7M, vs. a tax differential of $1,200 seems, shall we say, unusual?”

He notes that Horses in the Sun, one of the biggest tourist events of the year (which also inspired the construction of the city’s first luxury boutique hotel), is registered to an out-of-town nonprofit, so while it might be bringing in some revenue to local businesses, it ain’t doing nothin’ for the local tax base.

Saugerties is not alone in suffering, tax-wise, in Ulster County. As we wrote about earlier this year, Ulster County property taxes are on the rise, and even though there’s a tax-cap in place, state-wide, municipalities can vote to opt out of it, as Saugerties has.

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