In the 2021 property tax revaluation in Orange County, hundreds of black-owned properties in the Northside neighborhood were initially overvalued by more than $10 million collectively, while larger investor-owned homes were undervalued by nearly the same amount.
*example of this inequity with two homes on the same block in Northside
*example of this inequity on the same street in Northside
Neighbors, organized by the Marian Cheek Jackson Center and Justice United, built a coalition of a dozen local organizations, submitted over a hundred individual appeals, sent letters to the commissioners signed by over 600 county residents, and created visuals like the above and a gameshow parody “Price it Right!” to demonstrate the inequities. This collective advocacy effort and mass appeals mobilization resulted in over $500,000 of savings for long-term Black residents over the last four years. Without this intervention, the inequitable tax burden would have resulted in higher housing cost burdens for elders on fixed income and contributed to the already steep displacement pressures that our longest-term neighbors are experiencing.
Join 9,800 neighbors and receive updates from Triangle Blog Blog on education, housing, local and state politics, UNC, and stuff to do with your kids.
I worked in Northside for a dozen years and never thought to question the fairness and equity of the assessments until we accidentally discovered these examples and the stark contrast between the way West Rosemary and East Rosemary communities were being assessed. This led me into research on property tax fairness and equity across North Carolina, wondering if this was a unique problem or if it was happening more broadly (spoiler alert: it is, and even worse in many other communities across the state!).
While this linked blog post details statewide inequities and the broader policy challenges discovered in this research, I have since learned that there are many tools county tax offices and impacted communities can do to ensure that assessments are more fair and equitable. A future post will help detail these– and the work that a coalition of neighborhoods across Orange County will be part of this year to support these efforts!
Orange County’s next revaluation will be released in early 2025. Given the rise in the market these last years, this revaluation will undoubtedly have a major impact on the distribution of the property tax burden. Orange County’s tax office has been more proactive this year in partnering with communities like Northside to try to prevent a repeat of 2021. But it also requires growing awareness across our neighborhoods of the potential inequities and what we can do to help ensure that both the burden and benefits of our property taxes are fairly distributed across the County.