York County denies tax-abatement appeal from Limerick property owner

The York County Commissioners voted unanimously Jan. 15 to deny a tax-abatement appeal filed by Richard and Karen Hockney of Limerick. The board said the record presented at the hearing did not demonstrate the property had been meaningfully overvalued.

Richard Hockney told the board he had purchased and maintained a right-of-way (Weston Drive) adjoining Lot 17 for roughly 30 years and argued that the town had combined that area with his lot to calculate taxes on the full square footage. "It's simply a right of way that I bought so that I could take care of it," Hockney said, adding that the strip is not buildable and should not have been taxed as usable acreage.

Michael O'Donnell, representing the town of Limerick and its assessors, said assessors placed the property's market value near the figures in the record (he referenced approximately $255,000 as an internal number and pointed to the town's assessed values in the $440,000–$455,000 range), and he recommended denying the abatement because the evidence did not show a discriminatory or meaningful overassessment. O'Donnell said standard mass-appraisal modeling and comparables support the town valuation and that a deviation within about 3% would not typically warrant an abatement.

After questions from commissioners and an offer from Hockney to submit additional comparables, Commissioner Justin Chenette moved to deny the appeal; Donna Ring seconded, and the motion carried unanimously. The board directed staff to prepare written findings of fact to present at the Feb. 5 meeting and to provide those findings to both parties.