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For many, no easy street

For homeowners in plush neighborhoods like FishHawk Ranch, the combination of high property taxes and grinding rush-hour commutes can lead to frustration.

By BEN MONTGOMERY
Published March 31, 2006

LITHIA

When Don Shelton leaves his driveway here in the Jaeger Glen section of FishHawk Ranch, it takes the 45-year-old software consultant 20 minutes to drive 2.2 miles down two-lane FishHawk Boulevard.

That's the first leg of his daily hourlong commute to downtown Tampa.

Fun way to start the day.

"The roads," Shelton said the other morning in his driveway, "are horrible."

That's a refrain heard across the Tampa Bay area, but it's not the roads alone that frustrate Shelton. He pays about $6,700 a year in property tax on a 2,430-square-foot-home he bought here for $320,000 in December 2004. All those county-directed tax dollars, and it still takes 20 minutes to go about 2 miles.

It's a nice home, and the amenities in one of Hillsborough County's plushest neighborhoods are great. Try evergreen lawns and movie nights, babysitters clubs and driving daily past Osprey statuary atop a rough-rock fountain.

But because of Florida's Save Our Homes law dating from 1992, Shelton and his neighbors in this newer-than-most and mostly Republican suburban area are taxed on a much higher portion of their property's value than many other homeowners in the county.

A St. Petersburg Times analysis of the property taxes of every homesteaded property in the five-county Tampa Bay area found that boom towns and high-growth areas such as FishHawk Ranch, Bloomingdale and Valrico pay a far higher percentage of home value in taxes than more established neighborhoods surrounding Tampa, places where people have roots. It's the same for Hillsborough's newer northern neighborhoods like Tampa Palms and Arbor Green.

New homeowners are forced to pay the full boat in taxes, while the benefit of Florida's Save Our Homes tax cap is years away.

And those same folks are often buying their new homes in the far reaches of the county, in areas where existing roads and infrastructure can't easily support an influx of new residents.

It creates a conflict of sorts: high property taxes in places where county services are lacking.

If the elderly ladies who were taxed out of their homes were the poster children behind the Save Our Homes legislation, then Shelton, who has a BMW in the garage, kids in private school and doctors and lawyers for neighbors, is the face of the new suburban resistance.

"They don't squawk that often," Shelton said of his tax-burdened community, "but they're starting to squawk."

Though Save Our Homes has shielded homeowners from much of the tax burden while home values have tripled in the past 10 years, the savings don't mean much to people who have moved recently or are trying to move. When homeowners move, they lose the Save Our Homes cap.

"We've created something we're not too thrilled with," said Brad Monroe, president of the Tampa Board of Realtors. "People say they're locked in because they can't afford to move."

Shelton is building a bigger home - 3,700 square feet - behind the gates of FishHawk Trails, but he's now considering selling the home once it's completed rather than moving in and eating a tax bill he estimates would be about $15,000, more than double his current bill.

"A lot of people can't afford to move," he said. "They can't afford the taxes."

Tim Miles, a broker with Eagle Crest Realty, said the legislation benefits some and hurts others, but the jury is still out on how it has affected the real estate market.

"It certainly is not the same for all," he wrote in an e-mail. "I feel for all sides on the issue."

A Florida Association of Realtors study found that the Save Our Homes cap creates in effect a "mobility tax," which encourages people to stay longer in their homes.

"Are people less mobile since they know that if they move, they'll be paying more? I think it's a concern, as is insurance, but people tend to still focus more on whether the payment is affordable to them or not," Miles wrote. "They have to live somewhere."

The legislation has created curious situations across the changing region.

Take Estelle and Tom Mier, for example. The retired couple from Wisconsin downsized from their home of 10 years three years ago because they didn't need so much space, but they are paying about the same in property tax - $4,000 a year - on a much smaller house. That didn't stop them from moving to FishHawk Ranch's Heron Glen neighborhood, but the move didn't free up any extra money either.

The Florida Association of Realtors is asking lawmakers this year to pass a measure allowing homeowners to bring their tax cap savings with them to their new home. Such a program would have benefited the Miers.

Makes sense to Shelton.

He said the homestead exemption introduced years ago is obsolete today. It should be in the $150,000 to $200,000 range to have an impact, he said. Or people looking to move should be allowed to take their tax cap with them.

"There needs to be some kind of carryover," he said. "These taxes are ridiculous."

Shelton's new home is due to be completed in three months. He'll have to decide soon to stay and save or go and pay. Either way, he'll still be facing 20 minutes of teeth-grinding two-lane road each day.

"Something is out of synch here," Shelton said. "We haven't kept up."

Times staff writers Matthew Waite and Michael Van Sickler contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or 813 661-2443.

[Last modified March 30, 2006, 14:03:48]