Business Owners: Split Tax Rate Would Be ‘Death Knell’ for Wellesley

Members of Wellesley’s business community railed against the possibility of a split tax rate, which would significantly raise taxes for business owners.

The agenda for last night’s meeting of the Board of Selectmen included an item intended to spark a discussion about establishing a study committee to address the . However, the meeting quickly gave way to a public forum on Wellesley’s tax classification status, with commercial property owners and shop managers leading the charge.

Wellesley currently has a single tax rate, meaning all property owners – commercial and residential – pay a tax rate of $11.43 per $1,000 tax bill. Given Wellesley’s tax levy, if the town were to implement a dual - or split - tax rate, commercial property owners’ tax bills could increase about $10,000 per year, while homeowners’ bills would drop by about $600.

Stuart Swan, owner of at 103 Central St., spoke vehemently against splitting the tax rate.

“If you [split the rate], everybody in this room will tell you it will be the death knell for this town,” he said.

Wellesley’s residential-to-commercial property ratio is 88-to-12 percent, according to the Board of Assessors. The at a two-part hearing beginning last November, and though some residents favored splitting the rate, Donna McCabe, chief assessor for the town of Wellesley, said at the Nov. 29 hearing that towns typically split the rate when their commercial property makes up at least 20-percent of the town.

Wellesley has had a single tax rate for decades, but this year there has been more of a public push to at least discuss splitting that rate, according to Hans Larsen, executive director of general government.

“We should certainly reach an understanding of whatever we can do to ensure the long-term vitality of our commercial spaces town-wide,” he said.

Commercial property owners continued to reiterate Swan’s “death knell” comment.

Brad Perry, treasurer for the Holman Family Partnership, which owns the Church Square shopping plaza at the corner of Washington and Church streets, said that most commercial leases require that the tenant pay the real estate tax, not the property owner. He said his tenants have already had to pay increasing taxes to the tune of 20 percent per year for the last seven years.

“As far as we’re concerned, dual taxation would be a super killer for the retail community, because it’s just another cost burden for tenants who are struggling to stay afloat,” he said.

Maura M. O’Brien, executive director of the , said she hopes to see the single tax rate continue as a dual tax rate would be too great a burden for local commercial property owners and lessees to bear.

“It’s such an increase…it really would be a death knell,” she said.