Property Analysis

,Too
Preserving the Legacy of 2000-2003
Property Analysis as of February, 2009

The table below is developed from the February, 2009 town Tax Assessment file. It assigns all the properties in the township into categories according to the use of the land.

2009 Land Use Analysis
	Housing				Taxable Acres		Taxable Assessment
	Units	# of Lots	Acres	% Acres	Acres	%	$Million	%
Developed Areas
Taxed 1&2 Family Residential	2963	2894	2374	30.6%	2374	72.1%	$1133.8	88.6%
Taxed Residences in other assessment categories	169	15	22	0.3%	22	0.7%	$9.8	0.8%
Residential Exempt	88	19	50	0.6%
Residential Total	3220	2928	2446	31.5%	2396	72.8%	$1143.5	89.3%

Commercial and Industrial		132	278	3.6%	278	8.4%	$116.2	9.1%
Power company substations and NJ Transit			81	1.0%	25	0.8%	$0.8	0.1%
Commercial and Industrial Total			359	4.6%	303	9.2%	$117.0	9.2%

Long Hill Township Buildings		9	34	0.4%
Board of Education		3	38	0.5%
Social and Service		10	9	0.1%
Religious and Charitable		21	54	0.7%
Non-residential Exempt Total		42	136	1.7%

Town and County Roads (est)			427	5.5%

Developed Areas Total			3367	43.4%	2699	82.0%	$1260.5	98.5%
					Taxable Acres		Taxable Assessment
		# of Lots	Acres	% Acres	Acres	%	$Million	%
Open Spaces
Taxable Private Vacant Land		200	388	5.0%	388	11.8%	$17.4	1.4%
Farms		16	140	1.8%	140	4.2%	$0.04	0.0%
Power and Pipe Lines Right of Way			66	0.9%	66	2.0%	$1.9	0.1%
Tax Exempt - Religious, Cemetery and Other			19	0.2%
Private Open Space Total			613	7.9%	594	18.0%	$19.3	1.5%

Long Hill Parks			100	1.3%
Long Hill other Open Space			372	4.8%
USA GSNWR			2468	31.8%			note
New Jersey DEP Parkland and Open Space			95	1.2%
Morris County Parkland and Open Space			706	9.1%
The Passaic River (est)			46	0.6%
Public Parkland and Open Space Total			3787	48.8%

Open Spaces Total			4400	56.6%	594	18.0%	$19.3	1.5%
					Taxable Acres		Taxable Assessment
			Acres	% Acres	Acres	%	$Million	%
Total Acreage			7767	100%	3293	42.4%	$1279.8	100%

The mouseover pop-ups can not be printed directly. For convenience, the contents of these pop-ups are repeated below.

"1&2 Family Residential Taxed"

Includes 1&2 family homes, town houses and condos classed as Residential (by the Assessor). Existing, approved or under construction. Count of housing units includes auxiliary apartments, senior suites and rental flats in 1&2 family houses.

"Residences in other categories"

Multi-family rentals ("garden apartments") taxed in commercial categories, and farm houses. The count of housing units also includes 67 incidental residences on commercial properties, but the lot-count and acreage are included at "Commercial" below.

"Residential Exempt"

Lounsberry Meadows, Disabled Veterans, Life-Rights homes in the GSNWR. The count of housing units also includes incidental residences on exempt properties (parsonages, etc), but the lot-count and acreage for those are included at various "Exempt" lines below.

"Residential Total"

Please be clear on the difference between Residential PROPERTIES and HOUSING UNITS. A Garden Apartment complex is counted as ONE PROPERTY, but may have 30 HOUSING UNITS. Also note that 77 residences are on commercial and exempt non-residential lots, and their acreage is not included here.

As a point of reference, the 2000 Census reported 3139 housing units.

"Commercial and Industrial"

Occupied commercial and industrial properties, but excluding vacant lots owned by commercial interests and excluding multi-family rental complexes. Note that, in addition to "storefronts", these properties also contain 67 incidental housing units, which were counted at Developed/Residential/Other_Categories above.

"Power company substations and NJ Transit"

Power company transformer substations (i.e. fenced-in properties. Unfenced power and pipeline rights-of-way are listed under Open Space). NJ Transit includes trackage, station buildings and parking lots.

"Long Hill Township Buildings"

Old and new Town Hall, Police, Library, Public Works and Wastewater Treatment Plant, and various sewage pumping stations.

"Social and Service"

Fire Companies, First Aid Squad, Community Center, Senior Citizens Center, Grange, American Legion.

"Religious and Charitable"

Church building properties (including the lots containing parsonages), Shrine and Raptor Trust. Excludes church-owned vacant parcels. Note that, in addition to "churches", these properties also contain parsonages. These housing units are counted at Developed/Residential/Exempt above.

"Town and County Roads (est)"

Guesstimate. Road right-of-way is not assigned a block and lot, is not assessed and is completely omitted from the assessment acreage totals. Assign 70 miles times 50 ft. ROW = 427 acres. See the notes at Passaic River and Total Acreage below.

"Taxable Private Vacant Land"

Classed as residential or commercial. Includes vacant and recreational parcels owned by community associations. Excludes utility rights-of-way and exempt-religious. Excludes residential vacant lots approved for development or currently under construction.

"Farms"

Farm or farm-like property taxed at a highly discounted rate. Excludes farmhouses, which are listed above under Developed/Residential/Other. Some farm properties are enrolled in "Farm Preservation" and would be excluded from further development. Others are not enrolled.

"Power and Pipe Lines Right of Way"

All lots owned by PSEG/GPU/Transcontinental with no buildings. The substations are included with Taxed Commercial above. This line includes rights of way that are owned by the utility companies and are taxed. Some of the utility company rights of way are easements (typically, across county and state open space parcels). These easements have no identity in the tax records, and can not be identified in this analysis.

"Tax Exempt Vacant land - Religious, Cemetery and Other"

Church-owned property with no buildings, and all cemeteries. Also includes a few small vacant lots acquired by private tax-exempt land-preservation entities.

"Long Hill Parks"

Hicks Tract, Riverside Park, Meyersville Field, Little League, Stirling Lake, and the parking lots that go with these properties.

"Long Hill other Open Space"

Random town-owned vacant lots.

A few are prime space reserved as part of "density modified" developments. (See map of these parcels.)
Some are formal open-space acquisitions, not yet improved as recreation venues.
However, most of these parcels are undevelopable wetland and flood plain areas, and small slivers protecting drainage ditches and brooks.

"USA GSNWR"

A few staff housing units are counted at Developed/Residential/Exempt above.

"USA GSNWR Payment in Lieu of taxes"

The Department of the Interior distributes a modest amount of money annually to towns which host its facilities. This payment is intended to be compensation for local services that support the refuge. The payment to Long Hill is usually about $100,000.

"The Passaic River (est)"

Guesstimate. The township boundary extends to the river center-line, but many lots which abut the river are measured to the river bank. Half the width of the river is in the town, but is not assigned a block and lot, is not assessed and is completely omitted from the assessment acreage totals. Assign 12.4 miles times 30 ft. = 46 acres. See the notes at Streets/Roads above, and Total Acreage below.

"Township Total Acreage"

The New Jersey state Geographic Information System (GIS) reports that Long Hill Township contains 7767 acres (12.14 square miles). Other references claim 12.08 sq. mi. or 7731 acres (US Census, etc.). We will trust the GIS number. The sum total of the 2009 property listing is 7294 acres. 473 acres are apparently lost.

Most of that acreage is streets and roads. The rest is probably in the Passaic River. I estimated acreage for these two categories to make the components add up to the known Total, and to make the percentages come out to 100%. See Roads, and Passaic River above.

"Township Total Assessment"

This is not the "official" total assessment. The official assessment (for tax calculation) was frozen on October 1, 2008, whereas this number includes assessment changes entered into the records through February, 2009. Also, this figure does not include an additional $7.7M in assessments against various utilities. Those assessments are for cables and pipes that is not associated with any particular lot or acreage. The percentages in this table reference this (slightly low) total.

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