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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 12 June 2014

Created: 12 June 2014

Last Updated: 12 June 2014

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Mayor Steves noted the retirement of two community leaders at the meeting of the Scarsdale Village Board on Tuesday June 10th by reading proclamations in their honor. Geraldine Greene, Executive Director of Scarsdale & Edgemont Family Counseling Service, who will be the recipient of the Golden Door Award at the 2014 Gourmet Galaxy next week was commended for 35 years of community service. Steves said she made "immeasurable contributions to the quality of life in Scarsdale," and named June 19, the day of the Gourmet Galaxy, Geraldine Green Day in the Village of Scarsdale.

He then read a proclamation for retiring Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael McGill who has served as superintendent in Scarsdale for 16 years and also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Windward School. An educational "visionary" on the "cutting edge" Steves said McGill "truly cared about what students are learning and enriched the lives of many residents and their children." He thanked McGill for his "leadership, generosity and grace" and named June 12, the night of the superintendent's retirement dinner as Michael McGill Day in the Village of Scarsdale.

Revaluation:

In the public comments portion of the meeting, resident and statistician Michael Levine of Walworth Avenue told the trustees that there is a small part of the Tyler Technology valuation model that impacts low value properties, and over-values them. He said that the model does not decrease assessments for homes in fair or poor condition, leaving the residents to be assessed about $75 more per square foot than if they had been rated as in normal condition. He provided the trustees with a list of 15 such properties, for which the average impact was an 18% increase over what their value would have been if rated normal. Levine estimated the average tax impact for this sample as almost $3,000. He noted that there are 70-80 fair and properties and asked the Village to be proactive to correct the assessment and not require these homeowner to file individual grievances.

Trustee Stern offered to discuss this with Levine following the meeting and both the Mayor and Stern thanked Levine for his work saying "you have been consistently constructive and we appreciate it."

Bill Ortner of Butler Road also commented on the reval saying, "It is clear that the Tyler Model has valued many homes incorrectly." He noted that Fox Meadow had been divided into three areas, coded 201, 202 and 203 to assess land value and found that the coding doesn't follow a consistent geographic pattern and that adjacent properties with similar characteristics can receive different values. He cited Brewster and Overlook Roads that received the same valuations despite the fact that Brewster is a main thoroughfare and Overlook is a very quiet street. He said he submitted a FOIL request for information about how these designations were made but has not received any information. He asked the Board to "convene an ad hoc committee of residents to fix the problems and issue updated assessments." If it is too late for that he asked the Board to direct the Board of Assessment Review to consider these errors when hearing any grievances. He ended by saying, "The reval should have removed inequities, not change who suffers them."

Fire Truck:

Trustee Thomas Martin announced that the Village of Scarsdale will buy a new fire engine to replace one of the Village engines that suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure on April 30, 2014. The salvage value of the 22 year-old engine is only $3,000 and the Village determined that it would not be cost effective to repair it. So, given that the Village requires the fire truck to safeguard the public, they will purchase the new pump engine for $390,000.

In other Village news, the Village signed an agreement to share DNA material between the Scarsdale Police Department and the NYS Department of Criminal Justice and the NYS Police Department to enable all to identify suspects using DNA data.

The Mayor said that the Trustees had taken a bus tour of the Village to see some of the capitol improvement projects that are currently in the works including Village Board Bus Tour of Capitol Projects including the fire house at Village Hall, the bridge projects at Popham and Crane Road, the two water pumping stations - Reeves Newsome and Ardsley Road, the South Fox Meadow drainage project and 2-4 Weaver Street where a new condominium building is planned.

Also note that the fireworks will go off on Thursday night July 3 at the Scarsdale Pool.

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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 18 June 2014

Created: 18 June 2014

Last Updated: 19 June 2014

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The Golden Horseshoe Shopping Center on Wilmot Road is hosting their 26th annual Sidewalk Sale this week, from Thursday June 19th through Sunday June 22nd. The event will feature sales and bargains from your favorite store along with food, rides, a live show for kids, a jumping castle plus games and prizes.

Make sure to bring your children after school on Thursday for a "Frozen" themed jumping castle, and a live "Frozen" show with games and prizes. Friday afternoon the jumping castle returns and on Saturday there will be rides on robotic zoo animals.

We stopped by a few stores to see what they have planned for the event and here is what we learned:

Beginnings Boutique will offer deep discounts on clothing for men and women including premium quality denim, summer tops and dresses and men's tops and shorts.

Leah's Salon will offer discounted packages for haircuts and blow drys for men and women, kids camp cuts and discounts on their full line of hair care products, make-up and accessories.

Exercise Studio Physique 57 will be selling lots of great exercise clothing at great prices at the sale so spiff up your spandex wardrobe.

At Neil's the store is packed with discounted clothing for the sidewalk sale. Michael from Neil's invites you to "Check out several $10.00 or (3 pieces for $25.00) sale racks of kids, youth, junior and adult clothing outside. Inside you will find great promotions on bathing suits, rash guards, walk shorts, sweatshirts, jeans, collared shirts and much more. In addition, all of our girls departments, kids, youth and junior are running 30% off are already discounted prices on all the latest fashions! Come join the fun!"

Just in time for the sale, Chef's Table has opened, with farm to table selections for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Chef and owner Kevin Allmashy says they are using truly local ingredients, and will buy their produce from Ramsay's Farm in Scarsdale. Ingredients include Murray's Organic Chicken, and Grass-fed NYS beef and tomorrow at the sale this weekend they will be offering free samples of organic, gluten-free chicken nuggets from Murrays as well as free tastings of fruit smoothies. The restaurant appears to be off to a great start and this week tables were filled at lunch time with customers enjoying salads, sandwiches, Panini and burgers. Located in the former site of Katzenbergs, Chef's Table is hope from Monday-Friday from 8 am to 9 pm, Saturdays from 10 am to 10 pm and Sunday from 10 am – 8pm. Delivery and private catering are available. Mention Scarsdale10583 and get 10% off your check!

And don't forget to stop by All Good Things for premium ice cream and frozen yogurt served the traditional way. When you purchase a sundae, spin the wheel behind the counter for a free gift. All Good Things will be serving cotton candy outside during the sale.

The Golden Horseshoe Sidewalk Sale, Thursday June 19 through Sunday June 22, Wilmot Road, Scarsdale.Click here to check them out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShopGH.

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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 04 June 2014

Created: 04 June 2014

Last Updated: 09 June 2014

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Even after Tyler Technologies held a meeting to clarify the process behind Scarsdale's village-wide revaluation, questions abound. Greenacres resident, statistician and certified actuary Michael Levine has studied Tyler's model and agreed to explain it to those of us who don't have an advanced degree in statistics. Here are answers to two questions that get to the heart of the matter.

1) What were the key factors that were used in the model – i.e. Which had the most weight?

Before I answer this, let me explain that the "model" fits into a bigger process. My understanding of this process is based on what I have pieced together, plus what Tyler said at the May 29 meeting. My analysis is limited to single family residences. The process basically has four steps

(1) Develop land values based mainly on neighborhood and lot area (acreage), with some adjustment for things like busy streets.

(2) Create the model and calculate model estimates for every property.

(3) For every property, identify five (or sometimes four or three) recently-sold properties as comparable sales ("comps").

(4) Based on the comps, adjust the value (up or down or no change) from the model estimate.

So, now I am explaining item (2). The model is a mathematical formula. A simple example of a model/formula – one that they did not use -- would be

Value = (Area in Square Feet) * (380 per SF) + 350,000.

The "model value" for a 3,000 SF house would = (3,000 * 380) + 350,000 = 1,490,000.

Where would they have gotten the $380 and the $350,000? By looking at recent sales for all of Scarsdale and using a mathematical technique called "ordinary least squares regression". The actual sales would have been at all different "per square footages". The model value will be over for some and under for others, but the theory is that this is the best formula for explaining the sales prices if you limit yourself to formulas that involves a factor per SF and a constant.

Obviously, square footage is not the only thing that should matter. The acreage should obviously matter. There are a whole list of characteristics that a common sense person would think could matter, such as location, number of bathrooms, existence (or not) of central air, age of the property, etc. Some important subjective considerations are

• The quality of construction – materials and workmanship – which is intended to be captured in the "grade" and "grade adjustment" characteristics. Grade is from A (Excellent) to E (Minimum). The Grade Adjustment is a percentage, such that the average for any grade level is 100, and it could up (e.g., to 90) or down (e.g., to 110).

• The quality of maintenance – the amount wear-and-tear and so forth – which is intended to be captured in the "overall condition" characteristic. Overall Condition is from 1 (Poor) to 5 (Excellent)

You can learn more about these definitions by looking at the New York Assessor's Manual, which is posted on the village website.

With many characteristics that could contribute to value, the math of the regression calculation becomes more complicated, but the goal is the same – find a formula that expresses a value as factors applied to characteristics. Also, there is some art in deciding which factors to use.

With this as background, I would say that the Tyler model for Scarsdale – the results of their regression -- heavily uses land value (which basically reflects acreage and neighborhood) and square footage, which make sense. Grade and grade adjustment are also very important. Condition is important, and there are separate square foot measures for finished basements and rec rooms. There is an addition if you have an inground pool.

The Tyler formula does not explicitly include number of bathrooms or bathroom quality or the existence of central air, for example. If you have 3.5 baths in and they incorrectly said 5.5, it would not have had any impact of their model's calculation of your value

I personally think the model is simply too sensitive to the refinements of the grade adjustment, caused by additional mathematical nuances factors that are beyond what I can explain here. I recently saw a case where changing a "B 115%" to a "B 110%" on a smaller-sized housed caused a $60,000 impact. I do not think the real buying market would discern these differences (as compared to number of baths), and this is supposed to be about real market value.

But even if the model can be mathematically justified, my biggest complaint about all of this is that the Scarsdale taxpayers were never, ever informed about the importance of grade/grade adjustment, or even that it would matter at all.

• Back in 2012, the press releases and flyers assured us that, after the physical inspection, "[a] letter detailing the physical attributes collected and to be used in the valuation, referred to as a data mailer, will be sent to you." (emphasis added.) My letter showed things like acreage, square feet, overall condition, and number of bedrooms and told me I should indicate any changes. The letter did not disclose grade/grade adjustment.

• A taxpayer who looked at the Property Inquiry on the village website any time up until a few weeks ago would not have seen grade/grade adjustment.

• The formula was not made public until I figured it out from a FOIL request and submitted it to the Board of Trustees on May 27.

• Thus, a taxpayer trying to contest a valuation in an informal meeting would never have known their own grade/grade adjustment, and would never have known that it mattered.

It is as though your boss gave you your "objectives" for the year, and you agreed to them, and then at bonus time your boss told you that you got a bad bonus because you did not do well on some objective that was important in the bonus calculation but that you had no idea about.

2) How were the neighborhoods of Scarsdale weighted or ranked in terms of land value?

I am interpreting this question as asking about the results – the "ranking" and not the math or theory Tyler went through to do it.

As background, I should note that land value enters the valuation in two different ways. There is the "official" land value that appears on the formal assessment roll along with the total value. That value is then used within the model formula. The model does not just add 100% of this amount. So, a second way you could measure land value is in the sense of how it works through the model, and thus how much it actually ends up adding to your total value. I will call this the "contribution to total" land value.

Tyler's calculation of official land values appears to have been done early on. It seems they ended up developing 14 "neighborhood codes" – two for Greenacres and three each for the other elementary school codes. The village website now has the map that shows the neighborhood codes.

Tyler published formulas for official land values. The results are calculated and presented in this graph, and this shows you the relative ranking of neighborhoods

You will see that there are rally only eight distinct lines or curves, with some neighborhoods sharing the same curves.

I should also note the following.

• These lines are what I call the "primary" curve for each neighborhood. I would say the majority of homes have values on these lines, but there are secondary and tertiary curves within [most] neighborhood – lines that are about $50,000 lower than the primary. These lines will have the houses that are on busy streets, or very close to busy buildings or other factors that reduce value.

• This graph only goes out to one acre. If the graph went out further, you would see the Heathcote 01 (black) line going up more steeply, compared to the others. At 2.0 acres, Heathcote 01 is at $3.6 million and Fox Meadow 01/Greenacres 01 (blue) is at about $2.34 million. Edgewood 01 (a few houses on Taunton Rd) and Quaker Ridge 01 (Brittany Close) would theoretically be in between, but they do not actually have any properties at the larger land sizes.

Now, regarding the "contribution to total" land value. The Tyler model formula includes 98.97% of the official land value, plus or minus an amount that varies by neighborhood, as follows.

In other words, Tyler has concluded on some basis that the official land value is not a perfect indication of a neighborhood's contribution to total value. This slightly shifts the ranking of the neighborhoods, especially at the lower lot sizes. Fox Meadow 01 has the greatest land contribution to value for lot sizes up to 0.61, with Heathcote 01 having the greatest value at larger lot sizes.