The town’s lot merger policy was revised this week to allow property owners to merge abutting lots only for planning or development purposes and not so that owners can reduce their taxes.
The Town Council voted Tuesday to accept ordinance changes proposed earlier this year by Town Assessor Verna Sharpe, who alerted the South Berwick Planning Board to a Maine superior court ruling against a Scarborough property owner seeking to merge two lots so he would pay lower taxes on one combined lot. That merger would be unlawfully discriminatory, the court ruled, and violated other taxpayers’ right to equal protection.
“The Town of Scarborough had been found to be merging lots at owner request, resulting in substantial tax savings for those few owners,” Sharpe wrote in an April memo to the Planning Board, which sent the proposed changes to the South Berwick Town Council after a public hearing in June. “This is unconstitutional because the reduced assessments did not reflect just value and the rest of the taxpayers in the Town were burdened by this inequity,” her memo stated.
The court ordered Scarborough taxpayers who had been granted that advantage by the town to pay the difference between what they were assessed and what they would have paid if the merged lots had been assessed at just value, plus interest, on multiple years, she stated in the memo.
“I believe change is warranted to avoid or minimize any potential future legal liability on the part of the Town (of South Berwick),” Sharpe wrote.
At the same time, there may be circumstances when a lot merger is warranted and should be allowed, she noted.
“These circumstances may include a proposed building that would straddle a property line, or when required setbacks are not met and a lot merger or lot line revision would remedy the deficiency,” she wrote. In those cases, the Planning Board would have jurisdiction to decide when those exceptions can be made.
Sharpe advocated for “language that … encourages a conservative approach.” She used as an example an owner submitting a site plan for review when there is a need to incorporate area from the abutting lot. A lot line revision may be the preferred option instead of a lot merger, she suggested in the memo.
