Revaluation moving ahead

[news]

Property inspections for the townshipwide revaluation should be complete in a matter of weeks, but township Tax Assessor Steve Benner said it would be months before new assessments are established.

Appraisal Systems Inc. of Mendham, the firm hired by the township to conduct the revaluation, began collecting information from all township properties in March, including vacant lots, farms, houses and commercial sites.

The information will be paired with recent sales and market trends to bring assessments up to the current market value. Cranbury's last revaluation was in 1986 and the market value of all properties has grown but commercial and residential properties have grown at different rates.

As of Aug. 10, 960 of the 1,156 homeshouses had been inspected and Mr. Benner expects the rest to be done in the next few weeks. Once the home house inspections are complete, Appraisal Systems Inc. will visit the farm properties, Mr. Benner said.

In addition, 80 of the 89 vacant lots were inspected as of July 31.
Commercial property inspections began in July and Mr. Benner said Wednesday that he expects they will be finished by the end of September.

"Right now, it's just field work," Mr. Benner said Wednesdayof the progress. "The important information they will be looking at is yet to come. Right now, it has no numbers, just descriptions of the property."

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