Turbine-induced MPAC devaluation?
Administrator | Nov 28, 2012 | Comments 8
MPAC advises that my South Marysburgh property’s value has decreased $4,000 since January 1, 2008. This surprised me, because my home is not within sight of the proposed turbines, and was not constructed until April 2010!
Could it be that my MPAC assessment is based on already-declining market values of comparative County properties that are suffering turbine-induced devaluation?
It will be interesting to learn what other County residents have to say when they attend Ben Lansink’s “Devaluation 101” presentation at Waring Hall, December 5th at 7 pm.
Jim McPherson, Milford
Filed Under: Letters and Opinion
My assessment increased by 3.48% while the average municipal assessment increased by only 1.44%. What struck me as interesting is when I went online to http://www.aboutmyproperty.ca to read my detailed property report it stated there were no comparable sales in the last 5 years. I thought any increase was based upon comparable sales.
The average change in MPAC assessments has been very modest over the past four years. For anyone who has received a significant assessment, there is a well-defined appeal procedure. Just read the information provided by MPAC to start this process.
If you call up MPAC and ask about the procedure for appealing your assessment, they may offer you a reduction (e.g. 10%) over the phone, without the necessity of going through the whole process. They are so overwhelmed with appeals that they seem willing to over instant discounts.
down in the wind ghetto here, up $31,000 in 4 years.
-such wide variance between folks’ values in a narrow area
I have no idea where things stand at this point, but I’m hoping progress by the IWT corps are stalled upon Dalton’s exit.
Like David, I have talked to several real estate agents who, though not panicking, are depressed by the state of limbo created by this issue. Until the IWT situation is dropped from the provincial agenda, I have been told that house sales all over the County are in a stall. One agent told me that several buyers have asked questions about possible IWTs BEFORE they would look at the property.
One client of mine told me he received assurance from his agent before he bought, and then found – a year later – that his surrounding land was being considered for a wind farm. He’s rightly ticked off.
I don’t get much time to devote to the issue these days, but I’d like to throw a possibly helpful weapon into the pot.
A brilliant high school friend of mine – a Science Brain – retired to the County and, like me, he was in favour of wind, until he started studying it.
He’s a scientific detail kind of guy, and he told me that IWTs create a subsonic sound – hence the health issues. He said the traditional measuring equipment is not geared to detect these sounds, because they were designed to determine harmful high-level sounds, like jet engines and machinery. So their reports come up AOK on sound issues. He has read several papers from American universities addressing this issue, and says, “These things are Giant Sub-Woofers. Undetectable by the ear, but not by the mind and body.”
I think this is significant.
He also investigated bird and bat kills, and said that the general concept is erroneous.
“The blades don’t kill birds and bats … they don’t die because they fly into the blades.”
“Wind turbines create a vacuum behind them as they turn … it’s Newton’s Law, energy cannot be created or destroyed. If you’re drawing energy from the wind, it follows that you create a vacuum behind the blades, to account for the lost energy.”
“What kills the birds and bats is that they fly into the vacuum, and their lungs literally collapse, and they die in the air … instantly.”
You might want to investigate this further. I can supply his name if you’re up to several hours of memory dump.
MPAC bases its assessment calculations on past sale prices, not on anticipated future values. In rural communities, MPAC may have to consider sales from a wide area in order to get information from a sufficient number of comparable properties. So assessments in South Marysburgh may reflect sales prices in other wards.
If sale prices over the wider wide area have not been impacted much by anticipation of wind turbines, assessments in South Maryburgh won’t be affected much and, if there is some effect, it will be mostly the reduction that applies over the wider area.
To illustrate, let’s assume that actual market values (what realtors estimate as achievable) in South Marysburgh are reduced by 35% due to wind turbine development in the ward and let’s also assume that actual market values elsewhere in the County are reduced by 10%. The MPAC assessment reductions in South Marysburgh would be reduced by less than 35%, due to the use of sale prices outside the ward.
MPAC reflects only sale prices. What will happen (and is already happening) is that it becomes difficult to sell properties in South Marysburgh, and so there are very few sale prices available in that ward, thereby requiring MPAC to use sale prices mostly from elsewhere in the County. So it could be that the MPAC assessments in South Marysburgh would be reduced by closer by the reduction County-wide, which in this illustration is 10%.
If residents of South Marysburgh are looking for indications of the effect of wind turbines, they shouldn’t look at current MPAC values. Instead, they should compare real estate statistics — time to sell (indeally including all listings of the property), sales to listings ratio, etc — in South Marysburgh as compared to other wards.
In summary, there isn’t anything useful to be gained by relating the current change in MPAC assessments to anticipation of wind turbines. But it is useful to investigate residents’ actual experience in trying to sell their properties.
We are in the middle of the proposed wind ghetto in SM but somehow our value is up $37,000. I’d argue with MPAC if I thought they’d listen. Having followed the Wolfe island story, I can’t see them budging on our values based on scare from turbines that aren’t actually here yet.
I’m in South Marysburgh on Ct. Rd. 13 and ours has dropped $22000 !!
Over a year back I had occasion to speak with three County real estate agents, all of whom stated that the proposed Industrial Wind Turbine projects here had created a major decline in home sales. I have seen this for myself in my travels around the County as many properties have had “for sale” signs up for well over a year. These agents also predicted that real estate in the County would experience major drops in value in the coming year. Well, their predictions have come true. I recently received my MPAC assessment which stated the assessed value of my home dropped by 10%. I’m furious over how this, the world wide fraud and deception of Industrial Wind Turbine development as clean green renewable energy has already impacted my life. The deceit and fear mongering justification premised on climate change that these bird and bat shredding cuisinarts have created is despicable and has created a great social injustice. A simple common sense look at Industrial Wind Turbines that raise electrical energy rates which impact the poor most of all, are entirely dependent on fossil fuels for their components, creation and continued existence, create massive amounts of carbon and green house gas emissions and toxic chemical pollution and thorium radiation in their manufacture are only of benefit to the greedy uncaring people who reap the monetary benefits of this ponzi scheme.