By Sean Ruppert, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN The borough is losing $64,400 in tax revenue after settling with the owners of the Deerfield-Westerlea Park Apartments, who had challenged their assessment for four straight years.
Under a resolution approved Monday by the Borough Council, the borough agreed to reduce the assessed value of the apartments from $5.45 million to $4.5 million in 2008, in exchange for Hightstown Development Association withdrawing its appeals for 2005 through 2007. The borough also will drop its counter claims for those years.
The settlement also requires that no tax appeals will be filed by the owners in 2009 and 2010.
Borough Administrator Candace Gallagher said the taxes on the apartments had already been paid, so the borough will have to return the $61,400 to Hightstown Development Associates. She said the money will come from budget surplus for 2009.
Ms. Gallagher said that money represents taxes that were collected on behalf of the borough, school district and the county, but that it must all be returned by the borough.
In 2007, the apartments accounted for about $78,500 in taxpayer revenue for the borough and just under $190,000 for the school district, according to Tax Collector Ken Pacera.
The two lots that comprise the apartments on Westerlea Avenue, where there are about 200 units, had carried a combined assessed value $5.45 million annually for several years.
The loss in revenue comes just over a year after another four-year tax battle that also resulted in an out-of-court settlement and a loss of revenue for the borough and school district.
In January 2008 the borough settled with the owners of the Minute Maid property, a 16-acre tract along Mercer Street, reducing the assessed value of the property from $8.79 million to $3.28 million. The reduction resulted in a lost of about $80,000 for the borough and $192,000 for the school district.

