Harley-Davidson Motor Co. v. Springettsbury Township

124 A.3d 270, 633 Pa. 139, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2170, 2015 WL 5691056
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 29, 2015
Docket82 MAP 2014
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 124 A.3d 270 (Harley-Davidson Motor Co. v. Springettsbury Township) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harley-Davidson Motor Co. v. Springettsbury Township, 124 A.3d 270, 633 Pa. 139, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2170, 2015 WL 5691056 (Pa. 2015).

Opinions

OPINION

Justice TODD.

This appeal by allowance involves the proper determination of the fair market value of a commercial/industrial property for purposes of property tax assessment, including consideration of environmental contamination, remediation, and stigma, as well as the potential for future subdivision of the property. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part, and reverse in part, the order of the Commonwealth Court and remand the matter to that court, for remand to the Court of Common Pleas of York County, for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.

The factual and procedural background of this appeal is as follows. This matter concerns a 229.24 acre parcel of commercial/industrial property situated at 1425 Eden Road, Sprin-gettsbury Township, York, Pennsylvania, which is currently owned by Appellee Harley-Davidson Motor Company (“Harley-Davidson”). Approximately 110 acres of the parcel contain buildings and other improvements, and the remaining 119 acres are considered “excess” land. Previously, the United States Navy, from 1941 until 1964, and, later, a private firm, American Machinery and Foundry Company (“AMF”), with whom Harley-Davidson merged in 1969, used the parcel to operate a weapons manufacturing plant and, in the course of [144]*144their business, buried numerous contaminants—as well as unexploded military ordnance—in the subsurface strata. Not surprisingly, this use occasioned significant environmental damage to the property. Military contracting was phased out in the 1980s. In 1993, Harley-Davidson repurposed a portion of the site to operate a motorcycle manufacturing plant, which continues in operation today.

Subsequently, in 1995, in the course of extant environmental litigation, the United States, the United States Department of Defense, and the United States Department of the Navy (collectively, the “United States government”) and Harley-Davidson executed a settlement agreement.1 As discussed more fully below, pursuant to the 1995 settlement agreement, the parties agreed, inter alia, to share 100% of the costs of the parcel’s remediation.2 At present, remediation has not yet been completed, and Harley-Davidson is participating in the “One Cleanup” program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), which permits owners of contaminated land to avoid federal environmental liability by complying with state remediation law. Therefore, federal standards are satisfied if the requirements under the state program are met. As a result, and collaterally as a matter of state law, Harley-Davidson’s conduct relative to the parcel is governed by the Pennsylvania Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act, 35 P.S. §§ 6026.101 et seq. (“Act 2”), which enables land owners to avoid state environmental liability by satisfying certain conditions, including, inter alia, using or selling the property only for commercial/mdustrial [145]*145purposes, and maintaining certain engineering controls until Act 2 remediation is complete.

In 2003, the Assessment Office of York County (“Assessment Office”) notified Harley-Davidson that it intended to increase the parcel’s property tax assessment. Harley-Davidson filed an appeal with the York County Board of Assessment Appeals (“Board”), which affirmed. Harley-Davidson then filed a de novo appeal in the trial court. Appellant Central York School District (“School District”) intervened, and the parties proceeded to a three-day bench trial to determine the parcel’s assessments for tax years 2004 through 2010, pursuant to the Second Class A and Third Class County Assessment Law.3

The case proceeded to a bench trial before Judge Stephen P. Linebaugh. At trial, both parties offered experts in support of their positions regarding valuation of the property. The experts considered the three traditional approaches to valuation, discussed below in greater detail: the cost approach, the comparable sales approach, and the income approach. As the trial court concluded, and the parties agreed, the cost approach, which considered reproduction or replacement costs of the property, less depreciation and obsolescence, was not applicable to the property. The testimony before the trial court focused on the comparison approach, which compares sales of property of similar size, type, and location of the property, and the income capitalization valuation approach, which considers fair market value by dividing the subject property’s annual net rental income by an investment rate of return. Jackson v. Bd. of Assessment Appeals of Cumberland Co., 950 A.2d 1081, 1084 n. 1 (Pa.Cmwlth.2008).

The School District relied largely upon the testimony of Stephen Fulton, an expert in environmental contamination, and, particularly relevant for this matter, Bernard Camins, an expert witness in real estate appraisal. Camins testified that, [146]*146upon examination of the property, its “highest and best use”4 would be for “warehousing, office use with any excess land suitable for development.” N.T., 1/24/2011, at 346. Accordingly, Camins compared, inter alia, the prices of sales of similarly situated land to developers for similar purposes— here, a Caterpillar plant in Springettsbury Township, York County—and found that, given a developer’s likely costs and profits, the main portion of the parcel (for warehousing/office use) would sell for approximately $50,000 per acre and the excess land (for development) would sell for approximately $75,000 per acre, concluding that the parcel had the following aggregate market values:

Tax Year Market Value
2004-07 $24,500,000
2008 $26,500,000
2009 $24,500,000
2010 $18,000,000

See Letter from Camins Associates to Philip H. Spare, Esq., 1/14/2011, at 4 (R.R. at 562a). In providing his valuation, Camins repeated numerous times that he had made his conclusions based on an evaluation of the property in its current state, and not as if it were already subdivided or developed.

Camins further testified that he considered the parcel’s environmental contamination in arriving at his valuation. Specifically, Camins indicated that, since the 1995 agreement made the United States government and Harley-Davidson jointly responsible for remediation, and since the environmental degradation of the property itself would not preclude the type of development he contemplated, his appraisal was not changed as a result of the contamination. However, Camins noted that, regardless of whether environmental damage to the property would give rise to expense, the associated stigma reduced its market price, and, thus, he applied an across-the-board 5% reduction to his appraisal. Consequently, Camins’ final determinations of market value were as follows:

[147]*147Tax Year Market Value
2004-07 $23,000,000
2008 $25,000,000
2009 $23,000,000
2010 $17,000,000

See id.; N.T., 1/24/2011, at 329.

Harley-Davidson offered the expert testimony of Elliott Weinstein.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
124 A.3d 270, 633 Pa. 139, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2170, 2015 WL 5691056, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harley-davidson-motor-co-v-springettsbury-township-pa-2015.