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Pewaukee Board Rejects Owner’s Portfolio-sale Argument, Affirms Assessor on Multiple Parcels
Summary
Timothy Kaya objected to 2025 assessments for seven adjacent parcels, arguing allocations from a multi-parcel purchase were arm’s-length and that several small lakefront parcels are unbuildable. The Board generally sustained the assessor’s valuations, including a 15-foot "sliver" parcel by 2–1 vote.
The Pewaukee Board of Review heard an extended, contested case from property owner Timothy Kaya and ultimately affirmed the assessor’s 2025 valuations for multiple parcels Kaya purchased near Prospect Avenue and Rocky Point.
Kaya told the board he purchased seven parcels as separate investments and paid assessed values at the time of purchase. He argued the assessor’s characterization of the transaction as a portfolio or assemblage sale (and the assessor’s corresponding allocation) was incorrect, and he presented rent rolls, a Schedule E and the Gina’s Bar lease to show income and to argue for lower improvement values. Kaya also presented three local assessed-value comparables for small, irregular lakefront slivers, and asked the board to lower the values on the parcels he challenged.
City Assessor Rhett Tough and assessor’s counsel Amy Bridal countered that the real estate transfer tax returns and other evidence showed the parcels had been purchased together and that the assessor properly followed the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual and state statute in treating the group as an economic unit where appropriate. Tough explained use of front-foot lakefront land values, Marshall & Swift cost tables for improvements, and why some portfolio sales may be coded by the Department of Revenue as non-arm’s-length when allocations are not verifiable. He said where income data were insufficient or unreliable, the assessor used cost and land-frontage models.
Board members debated whether the transfer constituted a portfolio sale that precluded relying on the purchase price for any single tax key versus whether Kaya had proved an arm’s-length allocation applicable to each parcel. For a small, 15-foot sliver parcel (tax key PWC0935986) the board concluded the assessor’s front-foot commercial valuation was supportable and sustained the $173,000 assessment in a 2–1 vote; the chair described the assessor’s mass-appraisal model as reasonable. The board then recorded motions sustaining the assessor’s values for the remaining contested parcels (roll calls entered into the record).
Kaya flagged procedural concerns about open-records and evidence exchange and said he may pursue administrative or judicial review. The clerk will issue written determinations with appeal information for each parcel.
