Fulton County Commissioner Tom Lowe and others have for years complained that the county’s inability to properly assess commercial properties has provided the business community an unfair advantage, and at the expense of residential property owners.
That likely is about to change.
The county’s assessors are closing in on a mid-April date for sending out new tax assessments from the first complete revaluation of the county’s 24,000 commercial properties in more than 15 years.
Assessors say 87 percent of all commercial property owners will get increases. The median increase that is predicted is 44 percent. That will be more than mildly shocking.
Such an intense reaction is expected to the planned April 11 mailing that a special public meeting has been called for March 28 to present the project to tax consultants, commercial real estate agents, property owners and anyone else who wants to attend.
By property type, the median increases are expected to be 63 percent for office properties, 58 percent for industrial, 49 percent for retail, 38 percent for hotel/motel, 30 percent for apartments and 12 percent for office condos.