The City of New Britain is ramping up its efforts to beautify the hardware city.
The city announced a new program that would provide significant property tax relief in return for landlords and homeowners making improvements to their buildings.
“We want to encourage our homeowners to make some improvements,” New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, said. “If we can defer their taxes on those assessments for up to ten years I think it would be a great incentive.”
Here’s how the program works: if a property owners builds a new kitchen, deck, or even makes other minor improvements that total at least $2,000, then the property owner would only be assessed for 10 percent of the improvements in the first year.
The assessment would go up by 10 percent each year, and would be transferable if the home were to change hands through a sale.
After 10 years, the full assessment would be in effect, but it would only be ten percent higher than the previous year.
Carmelo Rivera says he’s not sure the program is really aimed toward him. Rivera and his wife live on social security checks, and he says improvements to his New Britain home, which he’s owned for more than 20 years, are just not realistic.
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“I would like to get everything done but where is the money? You know what I mean? I think the next step is I sell my house and get out of Connecticut because it’s very expensive to live here.”
The idea of the break, Rivera says, is great, and hopes other people take advantage of it.
“If I could rebuild my whole home, I would. But, where is the money?”
