Douglas County assessor processing record number of appeals

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Homeowners around the Denver metro area checked a notice from their county assessors this spring and saw that their home value — as calculated for property tax purposes — had jumped by shocking amounts.

Driven by a costly real-estate market, those home values have spiked since the last time homeowners received notices of value two years ago. In Douglas County, residential properties saw increases between 30% and 60%, with a median of 47%.

Property owners in Douglas County responded by ling the highest number of appeals the county has seen in history, according to Toby Damisch, who heads Douglas County’s property valuation o ce. In appeals, owners argue their property value should be lower.

And for Douglas County, “it’s the highest percentage of appeals in recent history,” said Damisch, the county assessor.

As of early June, his o ce had received about 28,000 appeals, but Damisch expects the number to total more than 30,000, as the deadline has passed but lings still trickle in by mail.

at number dwarfs the next-highest year for appeals — roughly 13,500 in 2009, according to Damisch.

His o ce sent roughly 150,000 notices of new property values for 2023. If the number of appeals totals about 30,000, that’s a 20% appeal rate, the highest percentage of appeals in recent history for the county, Damisch said.

High appeals return

It’s the job of county assessors’ o ces to establish accurate values of homes and other properties to determine how much property owners will owe government entities in taxes — a process meant to ensure that the amount of taxes people pay is fair and equitable.

( e assessor doesn’t set the tax rate but determines the value of the property that the tax rate then gets applied to. Local government entities like counties and school districts set the tax rates. Property tax rates are o cially called “mill levies.”) e property valuation homeowners were receiving around early May is based on data as of June 2022, near the recent peak in the real-estate market. at’s “in large part due to the fact the market was slowly appreciating,” meaning home prices were rising, Damisch said.

So even though home prices have declined since then, property values from the assessor’s o ce re ect last year’s exceptional highs.

It was a di erent story for about the last decade: From around 2013 to 2021, in Damisch’s opinion, appeals were below average.

So when homeowners would receive their notices of property value from the assessor’s o ce — based on the real-estate market from the prior year — the values were low compared to the market value at the time of receiving the notice, Damisch said.

But 2023 is the rst year since 2009 where many homeowners received a property value from the assessor’s ofce that is often higher than what their home is worth on the market at the time of the new notice, according to Damisch. In 2009, appeals reached a high mark due to the e ects of the recession, he said.

(As of June 11, Damisch was not sure what percentage of the appeals that his o ce received this year were for residential property.)

Higher levels of review e appeal season started May 1, and June 8 was the deadline to le an appeal with the assessor’s o ce. e Douglas assessor’s o ce will issue its decisions on Aug. 15, Damisch said. at’s because “we will require every hour that’s available to us to get that done,” said Damisch, adding “we’re working nights and weekends” to get through all the appeals. ose whose appeals are denied but want to go further can raise the appeal to the county Board of Equalization from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15. e board hearings are held in September and October, and the board will send out decisions on Nov. 1 in the mail. And if a person is still dissatis ed, they can le their appeal within 30 days of the mail date of that decision to the state Board of Assessment Appeals. Hearings at that level will be held throughout next year, according to Damisch. dor amid increasing tra c volumes. It was planned to collect tra c counts at some locations to make recommendations for tra c signal timing improvements. e project was to install striped

Project 3 aimed to address areas where drivers may be making “risky maneuvers,” by changing road striping, the planning document says.

Castlewood Canyon entrance and revise passing striping near the Prairie Canyon Ranch entrance.

Concerns over ‘head-on crashes’

Other projects are named with letters, and package A recently started construction, CDOT said in midMay.

“ is corridor generated many head-on crashes and vehicles crossing the centerline” of the road, the planning document says.

Package A was to add rumble strips in the center of the roadway to help address the issue.

Updates to come

As of mid-May, CDOT was expecting to have several other projects completed by 2027. ose include the following:

• Package C to improve access to and from Hidden Mesa Open Space by adding left- and right-turn lanes, acceleration and deceleration lanes, along with widening shoulders and adding centerline and shoulder rumble strips.

• Package D to improve access to and from Lost Lake Drive in the Franktown area by adding left- and right-turn lanes, acceleration and deceleration lanes, along with widening shoulders and adding centerline and shoulder rumble strips.

• Package E to widen shoulders and add shoulder rumble strips on both sides of state Highway 83, also in a part of the north Franktown area.

• Package G to add a two-way leftturn lane, acceleration and deceleration lanes, along with widening shoulders and adding centerline and shoulder rumble strips in the south Franktown area.

• Package J to add left- and rightturn lanes, acceleration and deceleration lanes, widen shoulders, and add centerline and shoulder rumble strips. e improvements will cover both the intersection with Gillian Road and the entrance to Cherry Valley Elementary School, the planning document says.

• Package L to add rumble strips in the center of state Highway 83 and