Council members last week unanimously approved Hillsdale’s tax abatement totaling $35,083.93 for Unit 7 at 465 Gardiner Road, but not before expressing general concerns about the amount of tax debt that had accrued and the length of time it had taken to resolve the issue.

“When you’re asking for more than $30,000, that’s a lot of money. As a city, we’re stuck, so we’re helping Hillsdale out a little bit,” said Councilwoman Samantha Wilcox. “We all agree that it would be terrible to have something like that in your neighborhood. I’ve spoken to you and I understand that it’s a large amount of money that I can’t get away from.”

For both the city and Hillsdale, this problem has been 18 years in the making.

Attorney Jeffrey Garabedian, who represents Hillsdale, explained that the property’s previous tenant, identified at the meeting only as Mr. Colburn, died nearly two decades ago. After his death, his wife and, for a time, one of their children continued to live on the property in a trailer they owned – they paid rent for the land the trailer was on – but taxes were not paid during that time.

In recent years, however, the situation has deteriorated, and in May 2023, after months of work to relocate the disabled Colburn, the trailer was demolished.

“It was demolished in May 2023 and it’s only gotten worse since then,” he said. “It’s a nuisance and that’s why we brought it here. We just want to move forward, put a new mobile home there that’s worth $200,000 and will bring money to the city. We’re trying to be a good neighbor.”

Garabedian pointed out that his company has no role in tax collection and no ability to demand payment. He also pointed out that the debt is not Hillsdale’s.

Estate officials explained that a small claims probate proceeding had been initiated when Colburn died, but it did not meet standards and needed to be re-initiated. However, since the proceeding was not initiated by Hillsdale, the company now needs to re-initiate it because the trailer’s value has dropped.

However, even with this procedure, a six-month open creditor period and an additional 30-day insolvency period would be required before the estate could be concluded.

City Attorney Chris Zangari noted that the city is protected by the probate provision and that if money is found somewhere during the process, the city could potentially recoup some of the lost tax revenue by pursuing the process. By granting a tax abatement, the city is instead giving up a right to this process.

However, the trailer is expected to be worthless and therefore will not help the city in collecting the debt. Zangari suggested that the city request additional documentation, but Garabedian declined because the process would incur additional costs.

“If the value is zero and you can present that evidence to the city council, that would be proof that debt forgiveness would actually not harm the city because there are no assets to collect,” Zangari said.

While Council President Mark Trimmer is concerned about the size of the debt, he said he believes it is important for both Hillsdale and the property’s neighbors to address the issue now rather than dragging it out for another six months – especially when the city has nothing left to collect.

“By dragging this out, we are hurting the park and the neighbors. I don’t want to hurt the park, it’s a great neighbor to the city and an asset to the city because it provides affordable housing that we lack,” Trimmer said.

However, Trimmer said more needs to be done to prevent this from happening in the future.

“As long as the run-down trailer is on the site, the park can’t rent it out. And not only does it lose money when it picks it up, it loses revenue it could have by renting it to someone else,” he said. “What concerns me is how the price got to $35,000 in the first place. How did we get to this point? That’s a question we have to ask ourselves.”