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County commissioners call country club valuations 'nauseating' and 'unfair'

A serene moment before the PGA championship
Mark Rumsey
/
WFAE
Workers putting finishing touches on the clubhouse at Quail Hollow before the PGA Championship in 2017.

Many country clubs in Mecklenburg County will see their property taxes fall this year, while homeowners in the lowest-priced houses will see theirs rise. County commissioners questioned the tax assessor Tuesday night about how that could be — and heard that property tax assessments are simply following the law. 

Many of Charlotte’s most prestigious country clubs saw their assessed tax values fall in the latest revaluation, despite exclusive ZIP codes and owning hundreds of acres. Carmel Country Club, Quail Hollow and Charlotte Country Club dropped in value 26%, 27% and 35% respectively. Meanwhile, the average home in Mecklenburg County saw its value increase 58%, and the increase was much more in many low-income neighborhoods.

County Commissioner Mark Jerrell repeated the oft-invoked phrase that a property's value is based on the "dirt," not the value of the house. That's what low-income residents in gentrifying areas often hear when they see their property values have risen sharply even though their house is the same. That doesn't apply, however, to golf courses that own vast swaths of land.

"Now we're seeing the dirt on a golf course is not equal value proportionally to the dirt of Miss Jones or Mr. Smith. That's just that's very, very difficult. It doesn't make sense to me at all. Not even, not even, a little bit," said Jerrell.

Others called the process outrageous and unfair to homeowners, especially low-income ones. Some even wondered aloud whether the county could use eminent domain to take country clubs with low tax values and put the land to more productive use.

"It is like, nauseating. It feels unfair," said Elaine Powell, vice chair of the county commission.

"It is simply outrageous how unfair this process is," said Commissioner Arthur Griffin.

In a detailed presentation that lasted for more than an hour and a half Tuesday night, tax assessor Ken Joyner repeated the explanation he’s given for the past several weeks. Golf courses are valued based on their income, rather than on the fair market value of all their land and buildings, like homes, Joyner said. Golf courses — even Quail Hollow, which will host the PGA Championship in 2025 — just aren't that profitable, Joyner said. And since they can't be easily sold for other uses, like redevelopment for subdivisions, those hundreds of acres owned by each club aren't valued the same as, say, an empty lot in the same neighborhood.

"Again, trying to value golf courses based on the sales of other properties can be very difficult," said Joyner, who also addressed property tax exemptions for hospitals. The county hired an outside consultant, Kenneth Voss, to evaluate the golf clubs' financials and value them based on income.

Jerrell and other commissioners said they respect Joyner and his consultants' credentials, but criticized that approach.

"We have to use a different approach. The income approach is not working," said Jerrell. "It doesn't even add up to the majority of the people sitting up here."

Powell asked if county commissioners could appeal the property tax values of golf courses, presumably to see if they could get a higher value. Joyner said any property owner in Mecklenburg County can appeal any property valuation.

In the end, commissioners said they’d have to change state laws about revaluations if they want a different outcome. Dunlap cautioned that trying to apply different valuations to different properties, or change valuations because they're not popular, could put the county in legal jeopardy.

"The bottom line is this process has taken place. What you do is you set yourself up to be sued again, when you want to reevaluate somebody's property because you don't like the process," said Dunlap.

County Manager Dena Diorio echoed him, warning the commissioners that trying to change the values of organizations like country clubs would undercut the county's whole property valuation system.

"I don't want the public to think that we're manipulating the process for an outcome that because we don't like the outcome that we have, because that undermines the credibility and the accountability of the entire process," said Diorio.

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Ely Portillo has worked as a journalist in Charlotte for over a decade. Before joining WFAE, he worked at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Charlotte Observer.