PERRYSBURG — A developer said at a recent city zoning meeting that a proposed senior housing development would funnel $10 million in taxes to the Perrysburg school district in 10 years.
“It’s certainly something that got our attention here in the district,” said schools Superintendent Tom Hosler at Monday’s board of education meeting.
The number is off by nearly $8.5 million, he said.
At the April 8 meeting with city council, Michael Knerem, development manager for Pride One Construction, said Perrysburg schools will get $10 million over 10 years in taxes if his company was allowed to develop an active adult villa community.
The project would be located north of Saint John XXIII Catholic Parish on North Dixie Highway and west of St. Clare Commons on Five Point Road. Originally zoned agriculture, the land was rezoned commercial, with the most recent request to rezone 18.3 acres residential multi-family.
The cost of the project is $22.5 million, according to numbers supplied by the city, Hosler said.
The county has determined the value of the property is $23 million. To determine school taxes, $23 million needs to be multiplied by 0.35 taxable assessed value which equals $8,050,000.
“This applies to your home as well,” Hosler said.
In general, to calculate property taxes, multiply the taxable assessed value by the property tax rate, which in Perrysburg is 20 mills as set by the state. The result is $161,000.
“It’s not $10 million in 10 years. It’s hard for even school people to connect those dots,” Hosler said. “But when you are making a presentation and you are selling a property and you’re saying things like ‘this will bring in $10 million to Perrysburg Schools’ … and residents are reading this, that hurts because it’s not right.”
Efforts to contact Knerem and Pride One were unsuccessful.
Knerem also said at the zoning meeting that the chance of a family moving into the homes was pretty much zero because the homes aren’t big enough.
Not all families have a mom, a dad, cat and dog with a swing set in the backyard, Hosler said.
“For single parents with families, a two-bedroom home with 1,300 square feet is enough space,” he said.
“We have people who are living in homes like that today with a family. So to say that is a little tone deaf in terms of where families live,” he said.
Anyone claiming zero kids is not familiar with our neighborhood, he said.
He used Rivers Edge Villas near the high school as an example. When built in the early 2000s, it was marketed as a senior citizen development. Today, there are approximately 15 students living in that community, he said.
Aparrtments.com lists the villas with no age restrictions and two beds and two baths for multi-family rentals.
What also gets glossed over is that as seniors move into smaller homes, families with children will move into their former, larger homes – which brings more students to Perrysburg Schools, he said.
“Let’s acknowledge there’s someone coming behind them with a family,” Hosler said.
Just because somebody says this will bring in $10 million with no kids, “our residents need to know that’s not the full picture,” he said.
Hosler said he was drafting a letter to city council to explain the situation.
“We know that development continues and we support the growth of Perrysburg … but changing zoning is impacting the district,” said board member Susan Rowland Miller.
“Being off by six times what the actual amount is, without judgement, misleading,” said board President Eric Benington.
