Alpha One Properties, Inc. v. State Tax Com'n of Missouri, 76768
| Decision Date | 22 November 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 76768,76768 |
| Parties | ALPHA ONE PROPERTIES, INC., et al., Appellants, v. STATE TAX COMMISSION OF MISSOURI, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
James C. Owen, Thomas W. McCarthy, III, Chesterfield, David J. Newburger, St. Louis, for appellants.
W.B. Tichenor, R. Randall Turley, Jefferson City, John A. Ross, County Counselor, Edward W. Corrigan, Asst. County Counselor, St. Louis County, Clayton, for respondents.
Shulamith Simon, St. Louis, for amicus curiae Home Builders Ass'n of Greater St. Louis.
Michael Waxenberg, St. Louis, for amicus curiae St. Louis Apartment Ass'n.
James Rittenbaum, St. Louis, for amicus curiae Gershman Inv. Corp. and Cent. West End Bank.
Thomas E. Tueth, Thomas F. Schlafly, Celynda L. Brasher, St. Louis, for amicus curiae Parkway School Dist. and Rockwood School Dist.
Rebecca C. Steward, Eugene J. Hanses, Jr., St. Louis, for amicus curiae Dennis Hill, Assessor for City of St. Louis.
Stephen A. Martin, Stephanie Karr Gastmann, Harold A. Ellis, St. Charles, for amicus curiae St. Charles County.
Kenneth D. Morton, assessor for the County of Saint Louis, assessed certain property owned by taxpayers Alpha One Properties, Inc., and Richard Fine as commercial rather than residential property. The taxpayers appealed the assessments to the State Tax Commission, where the appeals were consolidated. The State Tax Commission ruled that the property was properly classified as commercial. The circuit court affirmed the commission. This appeal followed. Reversed.
The facts are not in dispute. Alpha One is and was at all relevant times the owner of real property improved by seven buildings, each containing twenty-four apartments. On December 31, 1987, Alpha One filed a condominium declaration dividing the property into fifty-six condominium units, each consisting of three apartments. Alpha One owns all of the condominium units and operates the property in a manner typical of income-generating apartments.
Fine is and was at all relevant times the owner of realty improved by five sixteen-unit apartment buildings. On December 31, 1987, Fine filed a condominium declaration which divided the complex into twenty-five condominium units. Each building is divided into five condominium units. In each building, four condominium units contain three apartments, and one condominium unit contains four apartments. Fine owns all of the condominium units and operates the property in a manner typical of an income-generating apartment complex.
The issue before this Court is whether the property owned by the taxpayers is "residential property" as defined in § 137.016.1(1). 1 If so, the taxpayers are entitled to have the subject parcels assessed at nineteen percent of their true value, rather than at the commercial assessment rate of thirty-two percent. § 137.115.5.
For purposes of tax assessment, § 137.016.1, defines the pertinent terms:
(1) "Residential property", all real property improved by a structure which is used or intended to be used for residential living by human occupants and which contains not more than four dwelling units or which contains single dwelling units owned as a condominium or in a cooperative housing association....;
(2) "Agricultural and horticultural property" ...;
(3) "Utility, industrial, commercial, and railroad property", all real property of every kind used directly or indirectly, or held for use, for any commercial, mining, industrial, manufacturing, trade, professional, business, or similar purpose.... [A]ll other real property not included in the property listed in subclasses (1) and (2) ... shall be deemed to be included in the term "utility, industrial, commercial and railroad property".
To ascertain the intent of the legislature, this Court considers the words employed in § 137.016.1 in their plain and ordinary meaning. Rothschild v. State Tax Comm'n, 762 S.W.2d 35, 37 (Mo. banc 1988). Residential property, for purposes of the issue in this case, is "all real property improved by a structure which is used or intended to be used for residential living by human occupants and ... which contains single dwelling units owned as a condominium...." § 137.016.1(1). The wording is clear and unambiguous: a structure containing single dwelling units owned as a condominium and used or intended to be used for residential living by human occupants is to be classified and taxed as residential property. Section 137.016.1(1) plainly and specifically includes "single dwelling units owned as a condominium." The plain and ordinary meaning of "condominium" includes "joint dominion or sovereignty," "individual ownership of a unit in a multi-unit structure (as an apartment building)," "a unit so owned," and "a building containing condominiums." Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 473 (1966). One meaning of condominium advanced by the commission is "[a] system of separate ownership of individual units in a multiple-unit building." See 15A C.J.S. Condominium (1967). These meanings are consistent with the statutory definition of a condominium as real estate, portions of which are designated for separate ownership and the remainder of which is designated for common ownership solely by the unit owners. § 448.1-103(7).
It is undisputed that each of the apartments in the subject buildings is part of a condominium unit and that all of the...
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