Nassau County Assessor Charles O'Shea had good news to report for residents of local villages concerned with the reassessment of residential vacant land. Centre Island Mayor Jack Williams explained the problem his residents were faced with. "The undeveloped land was taxed as if it was commercial property, the highest rate, which means in some cases a large undeveloped lot can be taxed at more than the house on the parcel can be taxed at, which is illogical,"the mayor said.

During a meeting with Anton Newspapers editors, Mr. O'Shea said the problem is being addressed with new state legislation he expects to be passed by October, the first time residents will see the results of the reassessment figures in their 2003 school tax bill. Mr. O'Shea has worked with New York State Senator Dean G. Skelos (R) and Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D) to try to change the current law.

The reassessed values assigned to homes in Nassau County will not affect 2003 county and town tax bills. The first county and town tax bill affected will be those in January of 2004.

Mr. O'Shea said, "The reason the vacant land was assessed as it was, is because of a little known state law that no one brought out at the legislative meetings. It said that while a vacant parcel of land might be valued as residential and zoned as residential, it was taxed at commercial rates, two and a half times that of residential rates." When the actual reassessments were done by the Cole-Layer-Trumble Company (CLT), the company informed him that it was the law and they followed it.

Muttontown Mayor Richard Murcott too was concerned about the effect of the reassessment on his village. He said when the figures came out, he received calls from residents saying they were considering moving because of the high assessment of the vacant land included in their property. "We are trying to keep the land open, with no houses and the county reassessment is endangering that," the mayor said. He wrote a letter to Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi saying that by increasing the taxes on vacant land they were going to force people to sell off parcels of land and that would "change the character of Nassau County."

Mr. O'Shea said in defense of the reassessment furor, that it had not been done in Nassau County for 65 years. "Had we done it regularly, every 12 to 20 years it would not be so surprising to people. Under New York State law any village can reassess its property at any time. I spoke to mayors at the Village Officials Association and they said, 'We want you to it on your dime,'" he said.

Mr. O'Shea said another area where reassessments have been questioned are waterfront properties, where there are complaints about undervaluing parcels. He said basically, people with waterfront property, as others with a grievance, have until March 3 to challenge reassessments.

An example is on Centre Island where "The Piano Man," Billy Joel, bought his waterfront property for $22.5 million although it was assessed at $7.8 million. It was therefore underassessed.

Of the 414,00 parcels of property in the county, about 13,000 of them are waterfront.

Mr. O'Shea said the next round of assessments will use the 2002 numbers for the sales of homes and that should help the results.

Assessor Charles O'Shea is urging interested homeowners to take advantage of the county's grievance period until March 3 to challenge rerassessments. Applications for Correction of Property Tax Assessment can be secured by contacting the Department of Assessment at 571-1500 or by visiting the county website at www.co.nassau.ny.us.