The Pierre City Commission on Tuesday approved abatements, or reductions, in property taxes for three houses — including one now across the Missouri River in Fort Pierre — because of fires, an unusually high number, said Melissa Flottmeyer, director of equalization for Hughes County.
A fire on Oct. 25, 2018, in a house at 1008 N. Huron wrecked so it wasn’t livable, Flottmeyer said. The house had been owned for years by the Rev. Susan Carr, a former Pierre pastor who has lived in the Milwaukee area for years and rented it out. The house was assessed a taxable value last year, before the fire, of $152,684, while the lot was valued at $38,365, Flottmeyer said.
She gave the owner an abatement of $30,796 because of the damage from the fire for the last two months of the year, which amounts to $462 less in property taxes, or a 15 percent reduction from the total annual tax bill of $3,003. The City Commission approved her recommended abatements.
The fire is remembered because a high school student was home when the fire started and had difficulty getting out until her father, a volunteer firefighter, got her out.
On Dec. 13, the house was sold by Carr to Griese Property for $40,000, Flottmeyer said. She’s not sure if the new owners will demolish the fire-damaged structure or repair it. For this year, she has assessed the structure a taxable value of $30,000, she said.
The City Commission also gave a tax abatement on a house at 1316 W. Capital Ave., known as “the pizza hut house,” because of its shape, Flottmeyer said.
The house suffered a fire in January 2014 that made it unlivable and the owner moved it in March 2018 to Fort Pierre, she said.
The move went the long way around, out and up Euclid Avenue and north and west of the city over the Oahe Dam road to Fort Pierre, rather than right across John Waldron Bridge, she said. Which means the Pierre City Commission on Tuesday approved a tax abatement of $330.50 for a house now sitting in Fort Pierre.
The City Commission also gave an abatement of $742.04 in taxes on a house owned by Francis Taft at 310 S. Monroe that was ruined by a fire April 11, 2018,
The house had been valued for tax purposes at $95,423, plus the land/lot value of about $39,000. The abatement on the loss of value since the fire meant Flottmeyer assessed an abatement of $49,426 in the taxable value of the house, which amounted to a tax abatement of $742.04 to Taft.
The abatements approved by the City Commission must be finally approved and implemented by Hughes County officials.
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