Danvers Residents To See $319 Average Increase In Residential Taxes
DANVERS, MA — Danvers residents and businesses will both see an increase of about 4.6 percent in taxes as part of a tax shift approved by the Select Board on Tuesday night.
The 1.463:1 shift puts more burden on residential homeowners than last year’s 1.475:1 in a stated preference to keep the increase relatively the same between residential and commercial taxpayers. Commercial evaluations rose higher than residential evaluations last year, which would have resulted in an unbalanced increase for businesses if the 1.475:1 shift had been maintained.
The Select Board had the option of increasing the burden to as high as 1.75:1 on commercial business, but Board members were in support of being careful not to shift the burden too high on the commercial businesses and hurt those businesses — or their tenants — navigating a difficult business environment amid inflation and post-COVID.
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According to town calculations, the average residential tax bill will increase by $319.41 with this tax shift.
The town assessment — based on residential and commercial sales the previous year — saw residential property values rise 10.6 percent over the past year, while commercial increases were up 12.6 percent. This is a reversal from the years immediately following COVID-19 in which residential property values are much sharper than commercial properties.
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The increase was most in owned apartments, which saw a 13.5 percent increase. Condominiums rose 11.5 percent in value, single-family homes rose 10.5 percent, two-family homes rose 6 percent and three-family homes rose 4 percent. This comes after much more substantial increases in the value of multi-family homes that sold in previous years — with fewer of those units moving in 2022.
Residential property makes up 78.6 percent of the Danvers taxable inventory, with commercial property 15.5 percent, industrial property 4.2 percent and personal property 1.7 percent.
The town has about $7.29 billion in taxable property, and about $900 million in non-taxable property, which includes churches, medical facilities and school properties such as St. John’s Prep and Essex North Shore.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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