Brookville Associates contests Hernando County assessments for two Brooksville parcels

A Jan. 30 hearing before Special Master Steven Ester brought Brookville Associates (represented by Flanagan Felton LLC) and the Hernando County Property Appraiser into dispute over assessments on two adjacent vacant parcels in Brooksville (petitions 27 and 28).

The property appraiser presented valuations of $1,755,540 for petition 27 (31.6 acres, including 5.6 acres listed as nonproductive) and $650,980 for petition 28 (9.6 acres). The petitioner asked the magistrate to reduce the combined assessment, presenting a sales-comparison analysis that used recent nearby vacant-land sales (average distance about 3.5 miles) and a uniformity analysis of county-assessed comparable parcels, arriving at a reconciled requested value of about $1,250,000 for the combined parcels.

Why it matters: changes in assessed value determine local property tax liability and can affect future development or sale prospects; the case also raises how county records classify land use versus zoning.

The property appraiser said its primary approach was the sales-comparison method. For petition 27 the appraiser identified a set of sale comparables, narrowed to three primary sales ranging in acreage and location; the appraiser reported an overall weighted mean and then applied a cost-of-sale adjustment (41% for the group used in petition 27, 25% for the group used in petition 28) to reconcile sale prices to just value.

The petitioner's evidence included 11 vacant-land sales in the immediate area (mostly 2022—23), with an average per-square-foot price (after adjustments) that the petitioner reported as about $0.75; petitioner's uniformity analysis of assessed comparable parcels produced an average assessment-per-square-foot of about $0.61, which the petitioner used in reconciliation and placed more weight on the sales analysis when proposing a final value.

A point of factual contention at the hearing was classification and zoning. Petitioners relied on the county record cards that list the parcels' DOR land-use code as "acreage not classified"; the property appraiser pointed to historical building permits and said many comparables were coded as vacant commercial (DOR code 10) and that county zoning records indicated commercial zoning for the subject parcel at one time. The parties differed on whether certain comparables submitted by each side were commercially zoned and whether some of the appraiser's comparables lay too far from the subject to be persuasive.

Petitioner representative Sydney Cimini said the petitioner's comparables were closer in location (average 3.5 miles from the subject) and better reflected the local market, while the property appraiser said its comparables were commercially zoned and supported the county's current valuations. The magistrate noted the parties had provided competing comp sets and that zoning/land-use coding and the distance and character of comparables were central factual disputes for the record.

No final determination was announced at the hearing. The magistrate closed oral testimony, confirmed both parties' evidence was in the record, and said he will issue a written decision on petitions 27 and 28.