Property tax rates to finally be set.

With political sniping centering around Yankee Stadium, it appears that property tax rates will be finally reset within the next month, lowering most residential bills for the second half of the tax year that begins on January 1, 1999.

Sources indicate that the Mayor is expected to sign the Council bill that was passed on July 6th, and the Council will then set new adjusted base proportions and new tax rates that will apply to the overall 1998/99 fiscal tax year.

The new tax rates are expected to be calculated as Class I, $10.961; Class II, $10.739; Class III $8.80: and Class IV, $10.236. All rates are per hundred dollars of final billable assessed valuation.

The adjusted base proportions or share of the tax levy that each class would be responsible to pay would be: Class I, 12.9611 percent; Class II, 33.2198 percent; Class III, 7.076 percent; and Class IV, 46.7431 percent.

"We feel its an equitable solution and welcome the fact that the issue is expected to be resolved," said Martin Karp, chairman of the Action Committee for Reasonable Real Estate Taxes, when apprised of the expected mayoral action.

Newly calculated bills that will make adjustments to the yearly rate are expected to be sent out in time for the second half payments, but officials warn that owners should not recalculate either first or second half bills on their own, as past due interest payments could be applied by the computer.

Recall that earlier this year, new state equalization rates resulted in share-of-the-pie overages of more than 5 percent for both the residential Class I and the utilities of Class III. Since by law no class can increase more than 5 percent, the overage would have been placed on both apartment buildings and commercial properties.

But politicians have never permitted even the 5 percent rise, and year after year, Albany has agreed with city officials and voted in a limit that has ranged from 2 percent to 3 percent, protecting both single-family homeowners and apartment buildings, for the most part.

This year, both Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the City Council wanted a 2.5 percent cap, but each sent a different bill to Albany directing how the overage was to be calculated and applied.

Albany passed a measure that ultimately directed the City Council to make the share-of-the-pie adjustments on its own, putting them on the spot to challenge what the Mayor would have done, which was to put overage on both Class II and IV, but hold them to about the same tax rates as last year.

That body instead has chosen to place all the overage on Class IV commercial properties, so rather than having its tax rate held steady or go down slightly, as the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) had desired, those rates will now rise slightly overall.

But REBNY also represents many residential apartment owners who are still having a hard time making ends meet, and the apartment owners group, the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA), lobbied hard to ensure its members' tax rates would not go up.

Additionally, none of the owners groups wanted to put the Mayor in the position of having to chose whether or not to veto the Council bill and its apportionments, when there are still issues such as the discontinuation of the Commercial Rent and Occupancy Tax, the cooperative and condominium abatement law renewal, and the implementation of future housing and tax incentive programs waiting on the horizon.