FARMINGTON — The fairness of assessing road frontage on some properties and not others, raised by a taxpayer last week, caused selectmen to seek further study by the town’s assessor.

The board asked Assessor Mark Caldwell to consider, philosophically, whether to apply or not apply assessment to road frontage and what affect that could have in a potential change of practice. Caldwell is expected to report back to the board.

A practice that was “a common-type thing in 1991, we tried to apply it fairly when we did it but maybe some errors were made,” Caldwell told the board. Assessing road frontage helps distinguish value between two similar-sized lots; one with good frontage and another without it, he said.

Fairbanks Road resident Michael Deschenes, who went before the assessment review board last month and was granted an additional abatement on his property value by the board after spending hours researching similar properties, doesn’t see it as being done fairly.

In his research of about 100 properties on just Fairbanks Road, from Aardvark Sports to Route 27, only 11 properties were charged road frontage, he said.

“There’s no rhyme or reason,” he added, after explaining how one 20-acre property with a large road frontage had no charge while a two-acre property with a big banking was assessed at 100 percent.

Some assessment board members agreed that everyone should be charged or no one, Deschenes said, as did other towns that he contacted where assessors said it was an outdated practice.

“It (the practice) should have been fixed years ago. Why are we still in the dark ages?” he asked.

With no guidelines to follow, it’s a discretionary thing for the assessor, but some board members voiced concern that it sounded unfair.

“I feel your pain. I don’t understand it myself,” Selectman Jon Bubier told Deschenes.

Chairman Stephan Bunker questioned the impact of changing the assessments.

Caldwell said the taxable value from eliminating the road frontage would amount to about $3 million.

Deschenes doubted the amount would go that high, as he estimates only about 300 or 400 properties are being assessed road frontage. He noted properties near him, both commercial and private, vary in not only whether they are charged but at what percentage. Only three of the 11 properties in his study of 100 are assessed at 100 percent for road frontage, while some large ones are assessed at 20 percent and others none at all.

Bubier suggested that the town look at it “as on the surface it doesn’t sound fair.”

The town could go through and apply it correctly or eliminate it for everyone, said Town Manager Richard Davis. He said there is a need for periodic town re-evaluations by impartial concerns.

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