Opinion
16-P-1552
07-27-2017
GARDEN LANGLEY LLC & another v. BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF QUINCY.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28
The plaintiffs, Garden Langley LLC and Victory Langley LLC (collectively, Langley), appeal from a decision of the Appellate Tax Board (board), which affirmed the refusal of the board of assessors of Quincy (assessors) to issue property tax abatements to Langley for the tax years 2012 and 2013. The board concluded that Langley had failed to show that the assessors had overvalued the real estate at issue and, therefore, Langley did not meet its burden of proof. We affirm the board's decision.
Background. We summarize the board's findings. Langley owns ten parcels of land located at 191 and 201 Fenno Street and 7-30 Langley Circle in Quincy (city). Each parcel is improved with a multifamily structure that contains four dwelling units. The buildings are known as the Langley Circle Apartments (the property). For the tax years 2012 and 2013, the assessors separately valued the ten parcels and assessed property taxes in the amounts of $80,421 and $82,186, respectively. Based on testimony provided by Paul Hines, the assistant city attorney whom the board qualified as an expert on local real estate law, the board found that (1) the property historically had been treated as ten separate parcels with ten separate deeds, and (2) use of the property as a forty-unit apartment complex is nonconforming under the city's zoning ordinance. Relying on the expert opinion of real estate appraiser Kevin Spellman, the board found that the highest and best use of the property is as ten separate four-family structures. The board also found that the property is insured with separate policies for each of the ten buildings, as opposed to a single policy offering blanket coverage.
The board found that the "neighborhood is urban and the land uses include a mix of residential, institutional and open space." The buildings are three-story, wood framed structures built in 1945, whose "exteriors are brick and vinyl clapboard and [whose] roofs are composed of asphalt shingles over wood sheathing. The buildings are situated around Langley Circle, a paper-street, pedestrian walkway with a centrally located courtyard." Each unit has two bedrooms and one bathroom, "[t]he kitchens are all furnished with a gas stove, dishwasher (but no garbage disposal), formica countertops and backsplashes, and old-style cabinets," "the units also include either a shared or a private balcony," and "[t]here is one shared laundry facility in the basement of 201 Fenno Street."
In so finding, the board rejected the expert opinion of Edward Wadsworth, who testified for Langley. According to the board, Wadsworth "never considered analyzing a highest-and-best use as ten separate four-unit complexes" in rendering his opinion on the value of the property. Instead, Wadsworth "simply assumed that the highest and best use of the subject property was what he deemed to be its current use as a single [forty]-unit structure." Wadsworth did not analyze "the traditional highest-and-best-use factors of physically possible, legally permissible, financially feasible, and maximally productive" uses in forming his opinion, made "no adjustments to his market survey rental incomes that would compensate for differences between his purportedly comparable rental properties and the ... property," and "failed to corroborate the ... property's actual expenses with market data."
The board concluded that Langley did not meet its burden of proving that the property's value was less than that assessed in both fiscal years at issue, noting that Langley had not established "a highest and best use that was different from" that upon which the property has been assessed and taxed since it was constructed in 1945. Because the property was "functioning as separate multi-family units, with separate deeds ... as well as separate insurance policies and utility services and billings for each building," and because the use of the property as a unified forty-unit apartment complex would be nonconforming under the city's zoning ordinance, the board found in favor of the assessors.
On appeal, Langley claims that the board erred in finding that the buildings in the complex are separately insured and function as separate multifamily units. It also challenges the board's rejection of Wadsworth's opinion.
Discussion. "A decision of the board will not be reversed or modified if it is based on substantial evidence and a correct application of the law." Boston Gas Co. v. Assessors of Boston, 458 Mass. 715, 721 (2011). "[S]ubstantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." New Boston Garden Corp. v. Assessors of Boston, 383 Mass. 456, 466 (1981). "Our consideration of the substantiality of the evidence ‘must take into account whatever in the record fairly detracts from its weight.’ " Boston Gas Co., supra, quoting from New Boston Garden Corp., supra.
We have considered "the entire record," New Boston Garden Corp., supra, quoting from Cohen v. Board of Registration in Pharmacy, 350 Mass. 246, 253 (1966), and conclude that the board's findings are supported by substantial evidence. The board's finding that the ten structures are separately insured and function as separate multifamily units is supported by the testimony of Alan Slawsby, who has managed the subject property since 1992, and of Hines. Slawsby testified that he receives separate assessments, tax bills, and water bills for each individual parcel, and that the property is insured by separate policies for each of the ten buildings. Hines testified that the parcels have separate certificates of title, and that use of the property as a unified complex is nonconforming under the city's zoning ordinance. While Slawsby and Wadsworth testified that they consider the property to be a unified whole, there was ample evidence that the parcels operate individually. We "may not displace" the board's "choice between two fairly conflicting views." Dotson v. Commissioner of Rev., 82 Mass. App. Ct. 378, 385 (2012), quoting from Embers of Salisbury, Inc. v. Alcoholic Bevs. Control Commn., 401 Mass. 526, 529 (1988).
Slawsby also testified for Langley.
In fact, "each of the individual lots shown on [the] original [subdivision] plan were ordered [by the Land Court] to be able to receive individual certificates of title" as a condition of registration.
The board was not required to adopt Wadsworth's method of valuation, and it was "was free to ignore or discount ... any or all of" Wadsworth's opinion. Assessors of Newton v. Iodice, 29 Mass. App. Ct. 1014, 1016 (1991). We see no error in its decision to reject Wadsworth's valuation as unreliable, where Wadsworth (1) only appraised the property "as a unified apartment complex" and did not "consider [ten] separate four-family units in [his] approach to value," (2) used the "income-based approach" to valuation, but did not look at each unit's actual leases to calculate that income, and (3) did no research "as to what a four-family [house] in the city of Quincy was selling for." The board instead credited Spellman's testimony regarding value, and a contrary conclusion is neither "a possible [nor] a necessary inference from the findings." Dotson, supra, quoting from Kennametal, Inc. v. Commissioner of Rev., 426 Mass. 39, 43 (1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1059 (1998).
Wadsworth would not have arrived at an accurate value even if he had used the actual leases to calculate income, because Slawsby testified that Langley does not charge as much rent as it could.
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Decision of Appellate Tax Board affirmed.