Sarasota County’s value climbs less than 5%
During his board’s May 21 budget workshop, Sarasota County Commissioner Alan Maio offered his prediction that the county’s overall property tax value would go up 5% to 6% this year.
At that point, he noted, the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s Office had not issued its preliminary data for use by local governments as they plan their budgets for the 2021 fiscal year. State law requires that initial report be released by June 1. The final tax values are issued by July 1, in advance of property tax — or TRIM — notices going out annually in August from the Sarasota County Tax Collector’s Office.
Later that day, the office did indeed release that information to local government leaders. And, after years of increases in the 6% to 7% range, the value of property in the unincorporated part of the county is up 4.67%, the preliminary figures show, based on the certified taxable value reported in 2019.
The preliminary figure for 2019 marked an increase of 6.21%, compared to the year-over-year bump of 7.06% in 2018, according to the Property Appraiser Office’s May 2019 report.
The City of North Port once again is the leader among local governments this year, with a 10.25% uptick from the certified taxable value of 2019, the Property Appraiser’s Office chart shows. That is slightly higher than the 10.18% rise noted in the preliminary report released in May 2019.
The new report shows Town of Longboat Key had the only decrease year-over-year. Its preliminary property value is down 3.63%, compared to the final certified value of 2019, the Property Appraiser’s Office notes.
The May 2019 report showed Longboat’s preliminary property value was up 2.67% over the figure for the 2018 certified figure.
In response to a Sarasota News Leader question about the Longboat situation, Brian Loughrey, chief deputy of the Property Appraiser’s Office, explained the following in a May 27 email: “The Property Appraiser’s Office is required to determine value as of January 1 of each year. Thus, the estimated taxable values you are looking at were arrived at using sales data from 2019. This is mandated by Florida law. The values that the Property Appraiser creates for taxation are merely a reflection of the market activity for the prior year.”
Loughrey also pointed out, “We do not dictate market values …” Instead, he continued, “we determine them based on analysis from recorded real estate sales/transfers data in the county.”
Then Loughrey explained, “For 2020, 63% of Longboat Key’s total taxable value is derived from residential condominium units, so I performed a cursory high-level analysis of this market segment. The 2019 sales data for condo units indicates that both, the median sale price and the median price per square foot, are down significantly over 2018.”
He stressed that those are median figures, not averages. “Individual units can and will have vastly different increases or decreases depending upon their specific situations and the market activity within their developments,” he wrote.
Among the other data in the preliminary report from the Property Appraiser, the City of Venice was in second place behind North Port in terms of growth, with an increase of 5.81% in the preliminary property value. The City of Sarasota followed, with an uptick of 4.48%. Finally, the Sarasota County School Board’s property value was up 3.87%, compared to the certified value of 2019.
In late June 2019, to meet the state’s July 1 deadline, the Property Appraiser’s Office released the final property tax values for each local government as elected leaders worked on their fiscal year 2020 budgets and determined appropriate millage rates.
At that time, the county’s year-over-year increase in value was put at 6.45%. For the City of Sarasota, it was 7.12%; for North Port, the growth rate was 11.7%, compared to the 2018 certified property value.
The new Property Appraiser’s Office’s report shows that, altogether, the estimated taxable value of property in unincorporated Sarasota County is $65,141,365,138. That compares to the 2019 certified figure of $62,233,025,906.
As in the past, the School Board tops the chart, so to speak, with the value of its property: $68,892,674,564. In 2019, the certified value of its holdings was $66,325,426,769.
As for the Town of Longboat Key: The preliminary figure puts its taxable value at $4,156,865,808. The final certified value in 2019 was $4,310,961,756.
Construction boom continues
In regard to the estimated net taxable value of new construction in the county and municipalities as of June 1, the Property Appraiser’s Office reported that the School Board led the way with $1,696,284,352. The county followed with a figure of $1,644,264,124. The market value of new construction for both the county and the School Board was $1,952,005,400, the data show.
During the May 6 County Commission meeting, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis pointed out that, fiscal year-to-date, the county had issued 22,934 construction permits, which surpassed the total for the entire 2012 fiscal year. From Oct. 1, 2019, through April 30, he added, 1,141 permits had been issued for new single-family dwellings. “That’s a very high number.”
The total for such permits in the entire 2019 fiscal year was 1,751, according to a graphic Lewis provided the board members.
In October 2019, another graphic showed, 3,622 county permits were issued altogether, representing about $188 million in construction value. For both the month of January and the month of February, the permits issued reflected about $129 million in construction value, the graphic noted.
The latest Property Appraiser’s Office report shows that the City of Sarasota is in third place this year for net taxable value of construction, with an estimate of $318,484,317. The market value of new buildings in the city was put at $375,516,800.
The City of North Port was not far behind the City of Sarasota in terms of market value: $350,846,400. However, its net taxable value estimate was $253,337,578.
Among other data, the value of property in the City of Sarasota’s Downtown Improvement District this year has a preliminary estimate of $375,731,240, up about 3% from the 2019 preliminary value.
For the Newtown Redevelopment Area, the uptick shown in the preliminary estimates chart is approximately 7.1%, compared to the June 1, 2019 figure. The report from the Property Appraiser’s Office shows the preliminary estimate this year is $185,221,726.
On Siesta Key, the preliminary value of the Public Improvement District is $78,632,233, compared to the preliminary 2019 figure of $77,015,705. The 2020 figure marks an increase of slightly less than 2.1%.
The Public Improvement District encompasses the area where Sarasota County undertook the Village Beautification Project, which concluded in early 2009.