LITTLE ROCK — In a conference room last week, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines sat at a table with the county attorney, three appraisers from the assessor’s office and Little Rock dentist Richard Gore.
Gore argued that the value set on his dental clinic during this year’s countywide property-tax reappraisal was too high. To make his point, he had taken along poster-sized photographs of the protests that he said happen almost daily outside an abortion clinic down the street from his building.
“If I could leave and not lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, I would,” Gore told Villines. “But since I bought the building, and they showed up, I’m pretty much stuck with it.”
Gore is one of about two dozen property owners who appealed their property-tax appraisals to Villines this year after unsuccessful appearances before the Board of Equalization.
An additional 10 people appealed directly to Villines after the board raised the value of their homes after a second reappraisal of much of Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood.
The board in November finished hearings on about 6,500 appeals.
The reappraisal, completed in July, initially found that about 95,000 of the county’s 173,000 taxable real estate parcels had increased in value compared with 2009.
Including values set by the Equalization Board, the reappraisal put the value of real estate in the county at $28.1 billion, up about 5 percent from the last reappraisal, conducted in 2009.
While the bulk of Villines’ duties involve his role as the county’s chief executive, the property-tax appeals are one of a handful of cases over which he presides as the judge of county court.
Villines said he weighs the arguments carefully in each case.
“I’m not pro or con, either one,” he said. “You’ve got to be unbiased and listen to what’s said and make a decision.”
As of Friday, Villines had issued rulings affecting at least 31 real estate parcels.
Of those, he affirmed the Equalization Board in four cases and overturned it in 10.
One case was dismissed because the owner had not first gone to the Equalization Board. In 16 other cases, Villines approved settlements between the assessor’s office and property owner.
Joe Thompson, chief administrator for the assessor’s office, said the office sometimes agrees to such settlements after the owner provides more information about the property. Sometimes, he said, the property owner and assessor agree on a value, but the Equalization Board declines to approve it.
Villines is scheduled to hear his last appeals of the year, all involving Little Rock properties, today. They will involve values set for the downtown Regions Bank building, the Rave Motion Pictures theater on Colonel Glenn Road and the Promenade at Chenal shopping center.
While appeals to the Equalization Board are free, those who appeal to Villines pay a $30 filing fee, as well as a $14 fee to have a notice published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
County Attorney Karla Burnett said the Villines’ hearings are “really informal.”
“He won’t wear a black robe or anything,” she said.
“It is a court, and it does follow judicial procedures, but it’s more relaxed,” Villines explained.
In the case of Gore’s dental clinic at 11 Off ice Park Drive, the assessor’s office set the value at $714,500, up from $599,615 in 2009.
At a hearing on Oct. 25, the Equalization Board lowered the value to $655,150 after learning that the building does not have an elevator, and that the second floor is used only for storage.
Gore, however, wanted the value lowered further. He complained that the assessor’s office provided the board with a comparison showing the values of seven other buildings on the street but omitted four other buildings with lower appraised values.
He added that his building is made of wood, while most of the others are brick.
One building has been vacant for about a year, and another has had empty space for about three years, he said.
He blamed the protests, some of which have involved people holding signs with graphic pictures. At times, the protests have prompted police to block the street, he said.
“We’ll have people leave because they think there’s a bomb threat or some kind of problem, and we lose business,” Gore said.
Burnett told Villines the appraisals of three buildings on the street were lowered because they were affected by construction work related to the Interstate 430/Interstate 630 interchange.
Nathan Kelley, an appraiser with the assessor’s office, said information about the abortion clinic, Little Rock Family Planning Services, might have been excluded from the comparison because the building was inadvertently classified as a regular office, rather than a medical office, giving it a lower value. The error will be corrected, he said.
Villines said he would take the issue under advisement. After the hearing, Gore said he had confidence in Villines.
“He seemed understanding, and he asked the right questions,” Gore said.
On Thursday, Villines issued a ruling upholding the value that had been set by the board.
“While the Petitioner raised some good points, the Court is not persuaded that the Board’s value is incorrect,” Villines wrote.
At another hearing Wednesday, Villines lowered the appraised value of the building at 500 President Clinton Ave. in Little Rock that houses the Museum of Discovery to $7,609,856.
Burnett said that value had been recommended by the assessor’s office after it was given financial information about the building, which also houses offices and restaurants.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Inc., which publishes the Democrat-Gazette, owns the building and provides the space for the museum as a donation.
The original value placed on the building by the assessor’s office was more than $13.9 million. The newspaper company had requested the value be lowered further to $6 million, according to Villines’ ruling.
Villines’ rulings can be appealed to Pulaski County Circuit Court for an additional $165 filing fee. While no property owners had done that as of late last week, the assessor’s office appealed one of Villines’ rulings on Tuesday.
That ruling lowered the value of a west Little Rock house by about $516,000, to just over $2.1 million.
Villines cited a private appraisal that was commissioned when the homeowner, Ayman Alshami, refinanced his mortgage.
Alshami said he was impressed with Villines’ handling of the case.
“He was extremely nice and thoughtful,” Alshami said. “He showed a lot of respect.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/17/2012