A $2.4 Billion Island By Dale Rankin Property value evenly divided between North Padre and Port Aransas but tax rates are miles apart By Dale Rankin How much is a barrier Island on the middle Texas Coast worth? According to figures from the Nueces County Appraisal District records the answer, including both North Padre Island and Port Aransas is $2.4 billion in fiscal year 2012-2013, the last year complete district figures are available. The numbers were taken from the appraisal district rolls by Islander Chad Feerick, of GAF Landman, and GIS consulting which compile property tax and other numbers for private clients. That number is evenly divided between the two ends of The Island with $1.2 billion of total taxable property value in Port Aransas and $1.2 billion on North Padre Island. Early valuations for the City of Port Aransas place the value of taxable property in its city limits for 2014 at $1.4 billion, and budget estimates for North Padre also place the taxable value of property there at $1.4 billion, however, neither of those figures can be confirmed until final numbers are in from the Nueces County Appraisal District. So for the purposes of this story we will use numbers from the 2012-2013 fiscal year. None of the figures here include the value of state-owned land. Follow the money To be exact, according to those numbers for that fiscal year property on North Padre is worth a total of $1,205,548,871 with $983,553,301 worth of property on the west side of SPID and $221,995,570 on the east side. It is also not possible to determine how much property tax Islanders actually pay because the aggregate amount of exemptions – for homestead, over 65 years-of age, etc.- are not compiled by the district for Island property alone. However, based on the tax rates from the tax entities that collect property taxes on North Padre Island for the fiscal year 2012-2013 the bill for Island property owners inside the Corpus Christi City Limits (rounded and not including payments for bonds) in descending order breaks down as follows: Flour Bluff ISD $13 million City of Corpus Christi $6.9 million Nueces County Taxes $4.2 million Del Mar College District $3.2 million Nueces County Hospital District $958,000 Emergency Service District $315,000 Farm to Market Road Fund $51,000 In Port Aransas property owners (again without deductions or bonds) would have paid $4,230,801 in city taxes and 13,086,834 in Port Aransas Independent School District taxes based on appraised values. Port Aransas tax rate less than half of Corpus Christi The city tax rate in Port Aransas, for fiscal year-2012-2013 was .350944 cents per $100 of valuation on property, while the rate for the City of Corpus Christi for that period was much higher at .570557 cents per $100. As a result of a 10% tax increase approved by the Corpus Christi City Council for the current fiscal year that rate increased to .585264 cents per $100 of valuation (adjusted for rising appraised values) meaning it is more than twice that of Port Aransas which also increased by 5% but will still be lower at.252004 cents per $100 of value. Stated another way Island homeowners in Corpus Christi City Limits are paying more than twice the property tax on a home of similar value located in Port Aransas. Countywide According to the Nueces County Appraisal District figures for fiscal year 2012-2013 there was about $27 billion in taxable property in Nueces County with about $16 billion of that in the Corpus Christi City Limits. According to the 2014 budget for the City of Port Aransas the tax value of land in that city increased by 15% to $1.4 billion in 2013 from $1.2 billion in 2012, however those figures have yet to be confirmed by the appraisal district. Also according to the Nueces County Appraisal District numbers for year 2012-2013 the median sales price of a home sold in the 847 square miles of Nueces County was $169,900, an increase of 7.1% from 2011-2012 prices, and monthly real estate inventory declined to around 6.2.months. The report also says Nueces County has 170,000 pieces of property consisting of 3,536 industrial and utility properties and 9,213 mineral properties. The values remained static countywide for real properties and increases were seen in industrial properties for that year, and over the five year period ending last year, overall values increased by 20% primarily due to increased value of industrial properties and new construction.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 21:07:24 +0000