[thrownaway2424]

Great maps. I'm curious if anyone has information about the tax plan in question. It seems decidedly regressive. For instance, the taxes on this dump (http://goo.gl/maps/Fm3sT) are going up to $1230, while the taxes on this place (http://goo.gl/maps/ubtzA) will be $10743, even though the latter place's assessed value is 50x higher.

[sc68cal]

Philadelphia City Paper's Isaiah Thompson has been covering it for quite some time.

A quick summary:

The Nutter administration is asking the city's legislative body to pass its Actual Value Initiative (AVI), which would base property taxes on a city-wide reassessment that is supposed to fix years of screwy property values across the city. Many residents would wind up with a lower property tax bill, but many – including longtime residents of more affluent neighborhoods – will pay more, in some cases much more.

http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/Behind-the-curtains...

http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity?search=y&search...

[pselle]

The impetus behind the AVI is to "value at market rate" -- the idea is that by updating the valuations, they'll eliminate the unintentional tax break/overcharge some people were getting.

A funny thing about gmaps and Philly -- Philly's changing so fast that that 'dump' is probably a new renovation by now. The building I live in now still appears on Gmaps in its unrenovated state.

[thrownaway2424]

Regardless of whether it remains a dump or doesn't, the reported valuation of the dump for 2014, according to the linked application, is $92k, while the nice place has a valuation over $5m. So the dump is paying over 1% while the mansion is paying .2%