Scarsdale Mayor Addresses Popham Road Bridge Construction, Real Estate Reassessment

The following is the full address Scarsdale read at the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night:

Concerning Mr. Benjamin's Public Comment about conditions due to the Popham Road Bridge construction, and short-term parking near his business on Garth Road:

The Village has started the process of changing four, 90-minute meters along Freightway to 30-minute meters. The meters adjacent to Mr. Benjamin’s barber shop and across the street are already 30 minutes. The process of changing meters involves noticing the change in the newspaper for 30 days and will be in the Scarsdale Inquirer this Friday with the 30 minutes taking effect on July 29, 2012. Once the meters are officially changed, a sign will be put up indicating the new time limit on the meters.

The Town/Village is currently in the process of conducting a town-wide reassessment program. This process will produce the fair market value of every property in the Town/Village for the 2014 assessment roll. An integral part of this process is the inspection of your home by a professional data collector. Over the next few weeks, data collectors will be inspecting homes, starting first in the Edgewood Elementary School District. 

The data collection period runs from June 18, 2012 through the second week of January 2013. Data collectors will collect specific information about a property, such as the type of building construction materials, the number of stories, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. They will also measure the outside perimeter of the residence/building and any other structures on your property. They will not be collecting any information on personal property, such as artwork, furniture, or appliances and do not concern themselves with the tidiness of a property.

The inspection will typically take 15 to 20 minutes and you are encouraged to accompany the data collector during the inspection.  It is in the taxpayer’s individual and collective best interest that all new assessments are based on current and accurate data. The best way to achieve this is to allow the data collector to inspect your property. A letter detailing the physical attributes collected and to be used in the valuation, referred to as a data mailer, will be mailed to you in the winter of 2013. To value all properties as accurately as possible, it is critical that all property owners cooperate and participate in the data collection process.

Data collectors will attempt to inspect your home during the day, early evening hours before dark and or on Saturdays. All data collectors will carry photo identification and will be registered with the Scarsdale Police. If you are not available when the initial data collection attempts are made, a first-class letter will be sent to you requesting that you call our offices for an appointment.  If there is no response to the first-class letter, a certified letter will be sent. If you are concerned that you will not be in town when the data collectors will be in your neighborhood, please call 722-1324 and schedule an appointment.

Further information regarding the Scarsdale reassessment can be found at www.scarsdale.com or by emailing reassessment@scarsdale.com

Construction on the South Fox Meadow Stormwater Improvement Project, which includes the construction of dry detention basins at George Field Park and Copper Green as well as improvements to the open water course along Post Road, will begin by mid-July. There were several contractual issues that needed to be settled and resulted in the delayed start of the project. Pre-construction activities are taking place, which includes pre-construction photographs, surveys, completion of shop drawings and the mobilization of construction equipment. Construction is expected to be substantially complete by the end of this year.