County hits new $85 billion record for overall property values

The county saw a 5.46 percent increase from last year and marked the fifth straight year of post-recession growth in taxable property values.|

The value of Sonoma County’s taxable property has risen to an all-time high of $85.5 billion as the local real estate market continues to rebound from the recession, with rising home values and a small bump in new construction, county officials said Tuesday.

The record figure, disclosed in the county’s annual report on its property tax assessment roll, marks a 5.46 percent rise over the previous year - smaller than the 5.9 percent increase recorded in 2016, but still more than enough to set a new all-time high for the fourth consecutive year and mark the fifth straight year of recovery.

“As the economy and housing prices have increased, we have seen substantial increases,” said Greg Walsh, the county’s chief deputy assessor, in remarks to the Board of Supervisors.

Walsh told supervisors not to expect such large, real estate-driven growth to continue uninterrupted, but he admitted that “you never know what the market’s going to do.”

The growth in the latest assessment roll - which includes the value of all taxable residential, commercial and industrial land in the county - will produce about $1 million of additional property tax revenue beyond what supervisors planned for when setting the new county budget in June.

County officials will use the extra funds to reduce their reliance on savings held over from last year’s budget, a long-running practice, but one they are working to end as the county shifts to a new budgeting model where annual expenses are aligned with annual revenue.

“This is good news, but we can’t let our guard down, not one bit,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane, the board chairwoman.

“I remember about four years of very dark budgets after the recession because, although the recession hit in 2008, we didn’t really feel the whole brunt of it until 18 months later ... We have to plan for that, which means we need to have real financial resiliency.”

Property taxes are one of the county’s most important sources of income, expected to make up more than half of this year’s $471.7 million general fund, the county’s primary source of discretionary spending on such areas as public safety and roads. They are also a critical revenue source for public schools, with about 48 cents of every property tax dollar going to support local education, according to the county.

At the height of the recession, more than ?

62,000 properties - about half of Sonoma County’s residential real estate - had their base-year property values temporarily reduced.

Now, that figure stands at about 11,300 properties, a decline of about 4,000 from the year before.

The highest assessment roll increases this year came in the cities of Cloverdale at 7.72 percent and Cotati at 6.58 percent.

Property value grew 6.41  percent in Healdsburg; 6.34  percent in Rohnert Park; 5.84  percent in Sebastopol; 5.75  percent in Petaluma; 5.68 percent in Sonoma; 5.08 percent in Windsor; and 4.61 percent in Santa Rosa’’.

Unincorporated Sonoma County experienced growth of 5.46 percent.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, whose west county district includes many unincorporated areas, asked if it would be possible to look in more detail at some of those spots, citing anecdotal reports that property values along the Russian River, for example, are “spiraling out of control.”

Walsh indicated county staff could take a closer look at those areas at a later date.

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