Board upholds assessors correction raising stormwater pond parcel to $3,900

The Albemarle County Board of Equalization on June 16 affirmed the county assessors corrected 2025 assessment for a 3.942-acre stormwater retention parcel, raising its assessed value from $100 to $3,900.

An owner questioned the scale of the increase, saying the change represented approximately a 3,800% jump and asking whether such an increase was legal. A county assessor replied that there is no statutory limit on the percentage of reassessment: "There is no limit to the amount of change over any property. It's based on market value," the assessor said.

The assessors office told the board the parcel had been assessed at $100 per acre in prior years in error and that a review of comparable residual parcels used to support commercial properties had shown a standard equalized rate of roughly $1,000 per acre for similar stormwater parcels. The assessor said the office corrected the record in 2025 to make the parcels consistent across tax records and listed other parcels in the area that had already been adjusted.

The board discussed whether the stormwater pond parcel functions as a stand-alone piece of real estate or is effectively part of adjacent commercial parcels that drain into it. The assessor said the pond "serves these other parcels" and that the value had previously been embedded in the parcels the pond served; this change moved that theoretical value onto a separate parcel for the first time.

A motion to affirm the assessor's $3,900 assessment for application number 24 passed.

Board members said the correction was intended to make assessments consistent across similarly coded residual parcels rather than to impose an arbitrary increase.

The board then proceeded to other appeals on the agenda.