[TowerTalk] Tower and property values

[Jamesnf at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/4/2005 7:23:09 PM Central Standard Time, 
jimsmith at shaw.ca writes:
How about asking your municipality to lower your property taxes because 
your antennas have lowered the value of your property.
Of course, if the city fathers find your request amusing enough, they might 
(and could!) raise your property taxes.  Since you appropriately obtained a 
building permit prior to the tower installation and a city inspector checked your 
work both in progress and when completed, it would then be normal to update 
your property records showing a completed "improvement," which would raise your 
assessed valuation. The increased assessed valuation, of course, would result 
in a minor hiccup upwards during the next cycle.  A small price to pay, I 
guess, to insure winning the "towers make property values go down" argument.

Here in the suburbs of Chicago, I've always found the best strategy to be to 
not poke the sleeping bear.  I'd just leave that assessor back at his office 
rather than prowling around the house and yard doing the reassessment to 
account for the lower property values caused by the tower!

You pay your money, you take your chance.  If you do call the property tax 
folks in, let me know how it turns out!

Jim W9TM