Revaluation would have effectively doubled existing tax
By: Emily Craighead
WEST WINDSOR Predictably, voters given the choice to lower taxes in the township did just that.
They overwhelmingly approved lowering the township’s open-space tax from 7 cents to 5 cents per $100 of assessed value.
The referendum, which was proposed to address the likelihood that the ongoing revaluation in West Windsor would effectively double the open-space tax, passed by a vote of 4,877 to 1,685, a nearly 3-to-1 margin.
The administration had initially proposed reducing the open-space tax to 4 cents per $100 of assessed value, an amount allowing the township to meet debt service and maintenance obligations.
"I don’t like to take more than we need," Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said Wednesday.
Maintaining the tax at a minimum of 4 cents would also allow the township to purchase key parcels it has identified that may become available in the next year or two, according to Business Administrator Christopher Marion.
The council settled on the more conservative figure of 5 cents.
"Since FOWWOS (Friends of West Windsor Open Space) supported it, there was no question, it wasn’t a vote against open space," council President Charlie Morgan said Wednesday.
Officials noted that the municipal tax rate will be adjusted downward automatically, based on the revaluation and the township’s budget, to compensate for the increase in property values. But the 7-cent open-space tax was fixed, necessitating Tuesday’s referendum.
Voters originally approved a municipal open-space tax levy of 1 cent per $100 of assessed value in a 1993 referendum. In 1995, an additional levy of 1 cent was approved. Most recently, in 1998, voters supported a third levy of 5 cents, resulting in a tax of 7 cents per $100 of assessed value for open-space land acquisition and maintenance.
At the 7-cent rate, the owner of a single-family home assessed at the township average of $239,000 pays about $167 in municipal open-space taxes.

