COLTS NECK – The Colts Neck Township Committee has voted to put a public question on the Nov. 7 ballot and ask residents to approve an increase in the municipal open space tax rate.
On July 12, committee members passed a resolution to ask voters to approve an increase in the municipal open space tax rate from 1.2 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
Mayor Russell Macnow, Deputy Mayor J.P. Bartolomeo and committeemen Edward Eastman, Thomas Orgo and Frank Rizzuto passed the resolution.
At present, a property owner pays 1.2 cents per $100 of the assessed valuation of his home and/or property into the township’s open space trust fund on an annual basis. The owner of a home assessed at $800,000 currently pays $96 into the open space trust fund.
In November 2016, municipal officials asked voters to approve an increase in the open space tax rate from 1.2 cents to 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
If the question had passed and if the committee had voted to raise the tax rate, the owner of a home assessed at $800,000 would have seen his annual payment to the open space trust fund increase from $96 to $200.
Voters rejected the proposed increase in the open space tax rate, 3,001 to 2,069, and the members of the governing body did not raise the tax rate.
Municipal officials want to ask the same question of Colts Neck voters this year, but their plan to do so could rest on a decision that is pending before the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders.
Colts Neck officials said the freeholders may place a referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot which will ask voters to increase the county’s open space tax rate.
The deadline for officials to place a public question on the Election Day ballot is Aug. 18.
Colts Neck officials said if they are certain the freeholders are moving forward with an open space tax rate ballot question, they are likely to take action on Aug. 9 and pull the municipal question from the Nov. 7 ballot.
“It is hard to go to the well once, but if you go twice or three times it gets more impactful,” Macnow said. “I am concerned about having two referendums on the ballot at the same time, one for a municipal open space tax increase and one for a county open space tax increase. Even though the motivations are sound reasons, I am still a big supporter of this, but the question is the timing.”
Municipal officials have said the idea behind raising the open space tax rate is to generate additional funds that would be used to acquire more open space and to prevent development of the rural community.
Colts Neck’s open space tax rate was 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation as recently as five years ago and that generated about $360,000 annually in open space taxes, according to Orgo, the farmland and open space liaison.
Colts Neck subsequently underwent a revaluation and keeping the open space tax rate at 2.5 cents would have generated about $700,000 annually (i.e., a $340,000 tax increase on property owners), so officials reduced the tax rate from 2.5 cents to 1.2 cents per $100 to keep the total amount raised by the open space tax at about $360,000, he said.
Speaking of the plan to once again ask voters to approve an increase in the open space tax rate, Orgo said, “We want to increase the annual amount paid by the owner of a house that is assessed at $800,000 from $96 to $200 to give us more buying power because the state is running out of money and our spending is increasing. So we are going to need that money to preserve more farms.”
Macnow said the preservation of farmland will help keep Colts Neck rural.
“The more farmland we preserve, the less likely there will be high-density housing moving into areas we do not consider to be desirable” for such housing, he said.