Opinion
March 11, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Rossetti, J.).
Ordered that the resettled order and judgment is affirmed, with costs.
We disagree with the petitioner's contention that the trial court erred, as a matter of law, by not accepting the lease for a portion of the subject property as evidence of its value. The value of land and of improvements thereto should be determined, for tax purposes, as a finding of fact (see, Matter of Shubert Org. v Tax Commn., 60 N.Y.2d 93, 97). It is well settled that comparable sales are the most accurate standard for property valuation, but in the absence of sufficiently reliable market data, alternative methods may be employed (see, Matter of Allied Corp. v Town of Camillus, 80 N.Y.2d 351, 356; Matter of Merrick Holding Corp. v Board of Assessors, 45 N.Y.2d 538, 542; Matter of Long Is. Light. Co. v Assessor for Town of Brookhaven, 202 A.D.2d 32, 36; Matter of Anitec Image Corp. v Assessor of City of Binghamton, 109 A.D.2d 962, 963; Matter of Katz v Assessor of Vil./Town of Mount Kisco, 82 A.D.2d 654, 658). "`The suitability of comparable sales, absent legal error * * * is a matter for resolution by the trial court'" (Matter of Phelps Dodge Indus. v Kondzielaski, 131 A.D.2d 675, 678; see also, Matter of 511 Equities Corp. v Town of E. Hampton, 214 A.D.2d 565; Matter of City of Rochester v BSF Realty, 59 A.D.2d 1035). Moreover, if the total award, as well as its various components, is within the range of the expert testimony, it should only be upset if the trial court committed legal error (Argersinger v State of New York, 32 A.D.2d 708). In the instant case, the expert appraisers for both parties relied primarily on the market data approach. The petitioner's expert used the income approach only as support for the market data approach and the Board's expert used both the market approach and the income approach but did not rely on the latter because of the insufficiency and unreliability of the available data. Moreover, the determination of the trial court fell well within the assessed values urged by the respective parties and the court fully explained its determination, addressing the adjustments to the comparable sales applied by the parties' appraisers — the property's narrow apex and the abutting Long Island Rail Road line — and discussed the zoning of the property. Accordingly, the trial court's determination was properly explained, within the range of the values urged by the parties' experts and is supported by the evidence in the record.
We have considered the petitioner's remaining contentions and find them to be without merit. Rosenblatt, J.P., Miller, Ritter and Sullivan, JJ., concur.