Union County board upholds most county property valuations after day of appeals

The Union County Board of Equalization and Review met to hear property valuation appeals from multiple taxpayers, weighing development constraints, access issues and floodplain/topography limits before largely approving the assessor's values or modest reductions.

Why it matters: The board's determinations will determine property tax bills for owners of residential lots, commercial parcels and scattered investments across Union County. Many appellants argued that access limitations, streams, steep topography, or pending road projects make parcels difficult or impossible to develop and therefore worth less than the county's appraisal.

Taxpayers and their representatives repeatedly made the same themes during the session: parcels described as landlocked, narrow or constrained by floodplain or steep contour lines; pending or proposed North Carolina Department of Transportation projects (including parts of a proposed Waxhaw Parkway) that create uncertainty over sellability or usable area; and older commercial buildings with limited reuse potential.

Tom Crouch, a representative who spoke for several LLCs that appealed, described recurring concerns in several cases: "we can't sell it anyone because there's so much unknown," and in other parcels noted that the land is "completely landlocked" with no legal access. County appraisers responded with neighborhood sales analyses and a consistent methodology they said was applied across parcels. Joe Hunter, county…