Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. City of Cohoes Board of Assessors

280 A.D.2d 724, 720 N.Y.S.2d 241, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 959
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedFebruary 1, 2001
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 280 A.D.2d 724 (Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. City of Cohoes Board of Assessors) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. City of Cohoes Board of Assessors, 280 A.D.2d 724, 720 N.Y.S.2d 241, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 959 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

—Peters, J. P.

Appeals from an amended order and judgment and a second amended order and judgment of the Supreme Court (Casey, J.H.O.), entered December 29, 1999 and January 21, 2000 in Albany County, which granted petitioner’s application, in a proceeding pursuant to RPTL article 7, to reduce real property tax assessments on a parcel of property owned by petitioner.

This proceeding challenges the 1994 through 19971 tax assessments made on the School Street Hydroelectric Generating Station (hereinafter the facility), property that petitioner owns in the City of Cohoes, Albany County. Prior to a hearing, the parties stipulated, inter alia, that appraisals of the facility’s value would be computed with the “reproduction cost new less depreciation” (hereinafter RCNLD) method and that the “reproduction cost new” (hereinafter RCN) figures would not be reduced for “economic obsolescence.”2

As the RCNLD method is comprised of both a land value component, here stipulated at $2 million, and a RCN figure, the “present-day cost of reproducing the property’s improvements” (Matter of Lehigh Portland Cement Co. v Assessor of Town of Catskill, 263 AD2d 558, 559), reduced by the “physical depreciation * * * attributable to the existing structures as of the valuation date” (id., at 559; see, Matter of City of Troy v Kusala, 227 AD2d 736, 737, n 2, lv denied 89 NY2d 801), the engineer and ad valorem tax appraiser for respondent City of Cohoes, George Sansoucy, prepared an appraisal report using one of several methods for computing RCN — the “sticks and bricks method,” also referred to as the “unit-cost method” or the “quantity survey method.” This method produces a cost estimate to reproduce the property based upon a detailed inventory of direct costs, such as labor, materials and equipment, coupled with indirect costs. Petitioner, however, hired Kleinschmidt Associates (hereinafter KA) solely for an engineering estimate of RCN using the “sticks and bricks” method due to its specialized expertise in the design, construction and operation of hydroelectric generating plants. With KA working thereafter with AUS Consultants to provide information to assist with the depreciation analysis, AUS made its own computation of RCN using the “trended original costs” [725]*725method — computing the original investment that was not subsequently replaced or retired and applying corrected indices to convert the original investment into a present day dollar value. AUS then determined the amount of depreciation using information obtained from KA and ultimately arrived at a RC-NLD valuation for each tax year and the assessed values reflected in its report.

At trial, petitioner submitted the report prepared by KA (hereinafter the KA report), along with the testimony of the hydroelectric engineer who oversaw the report’s compilation, Paul Williams. It also submitted the appraisal report prepared by AUS (hereinafter the AUS report), along with the testimony of its appraiser, Charles Jerominski. The City submitted the report prepared by Sansoucy and called him as its witness. Petitioner vociferously objected to the admission of both Sansoucy’s testimony and his appraisal report, alleging a lack of expertise and foundational support; Supreme Court reserved decision.

Thereafter, Supreme Court found that petitioner met its initial burden of demonstrating an overvaluation for the years in question. Sustaining the objection to Sansoucy’s testimony regarding his appraisal as lacking “qualified expertise,” the court also rejected his report because of its lack of foundational support. Finding Williams to be “eminently qualified by experience, background and training,” the court relied upon his valuation of the facility’s turbine generators and noted that his methodology yielded more accurate results than that of Sansoucy. Next, reviewing the testimony of Jerominski and the AUS report, the court found the appraisal to be “sound, sensible, well-founded and supported by the evidence.” After the court adopted the AUS report’s use of straight line depreciation, its RCNLD valuations and its reduced calculation of assessed value for the relevant taxable years, this appeal ensued.

Initially, we must determine whether petitioner has overcome the presumptive validity accorded to a tax assessment by the submission of substantial evidence demonstrating an overvaluation (see, Matter of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v Assessor of Town of Geddes, 92 NY2d 192, 196; Matter of State of New York v Town of Hardenburgh, 273 AD2d 769, 771). In this context, both the documentary and testimonial evidence “will most often consist of a detailed, competent appraisal based on standard, accepted appraisal techniques * * * prepared by a qualified appraiser” (Matter of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v Assessor of Town of Geddes, supra, at 196). Upon a showing of [726]*726“a valid and credible dispute regarding valuation” (Matter of FMC Corp. v Unmack, 92 NY2d 179, 188; see, Matter of New Cobleskill Assocs. v Assessors of Town of Cobleskill, 280 AD2d 745 [decided herewith]), using “ ‘sound theory and objective data’ ” (Matter of FMC Corp. v Unmack, supra, at 188, quoting Matter of Commerce Holding Corp. v Board of Assessors, 88 NY2d 724, 732), the presumption is overcome.

Briefly addressing respondents’ challenge to the admissibility of both the KA report and Williams’ testimony with respect thereto, we find that since respondents failed to make a timely objection to their introduction, the issue is unpreserved for our review (see, Isaacson v Karpe, 84 AD2d 868, 869; see generally, Matter of Michelle S., 195 AD2d 721, 722).

With no other viable challenge to the KA report or Williams’ testimony based thereupon, respondents focused on the trended original costs method of valuation employed by AUS and asserted that unverified records maintained by petitioner were used in connection therewith. Without addressing those claimed deficiencies at this juncture, we find that petitioner “demonstrate [d] the existence of a valid and credible dispute regarding valuation” (Matter of FMC Corp. v Unmack, supra, at 188) by the proffer of Williams’ testimony and the KA report grounded upon “ ‘sound theory and objective data’ ” (id., at 188, quoting Matter of Commerce Holding Corp. v Board of Assessors, supra, at 732) to denote a RCN value which was markedly different than that calculated by respondents.

Left to “weigh the entire record, including evidence of claimed deficiencies in the assessment, to determine whether petitioner has established by a preponderance of the evidence that its property has been overvalued” (Matter of FMC Corp. v Unmack, supra, at 188), we are constrained to: “not set aside a finding of value made by Supreme Court ‘ “unless such finding is based upon [an] erroneous theory of law or [an] erroneous ruling in the admission or exclusion of evidence, or unless it appears that the court * * * has failed to give to conflicting evidence the relative weight which it should have and thus * * * arrived at a value which is excessive or inadequate” ’ ” (Matter of Universal Packaging v Assessor of City of Saratoga Springs, 259 AD2d 875, quoting People ex rel. MacCracken v Miller, 291 NY 55, 61, quoting Matter of City of New York [Newtown Cr.], 284 NY 493, 497 [emphasis in original]).

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Bluebook (online)
280 A.D.2d 724, 720 N.Y.S.2d 241, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 959, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/niagara-mohawk-power-corp-v-city-of-cohoes-board-of-assessors-nyappdiv-2001.