by peter e. bortner
Schuylkill County, Saint Clair Area School District and New Castle Township have settled a tax assessment appeal more than eight years after it was filed.
The county, district and township agreed on Monday that the property, which is owned by the Schuylkill County Municipal Authority and is leased to Spectrasite Communications Inc. for a cell phone tower, will have an assessed value of $94,600 this year and in the future.
The parties also accepted a fair market value of $200,000 for the property, which county Chief Assessor Virginia Murray said is located east of Route 61 near Saint Clair, for the years 2004 through 2012; the assessed value of $94,600 produces a fair market value of $200,000 this year under the county's assessment system.
Judge Charles M. Miller signed an order on Monday approving the settlement of the case.
Assistant county solicitor Robert S. Frycklund said Tuesday that the appeal, which was filed on Nov. 7, 2003, took so long to resolve in part because the courts first had to settle the question of the taxability of cell phone towers.
"(Spectrasite's) primary position was that cell towers are personal property and not taxable as real estate," he said.
The test case was in Cumberland County Court, which eventually ruled that cell phone towers could be taxed as real property, Frycklund said.
"It took several years" to conclude that case, with a major factor being the time it takes to dismantle a tower, he said.
Frycklund said such towers take several days to dismantle.
However, Spectrasite also had maintained that the property was overvalued, so settling the taxability question was only the first step in resolving the case, according to Frycklund.
"It took a few years to negotiate this," Frycklund said.