Rustici v. Town of Stonington

• Decision Date: 22 November 1977
• Citation: 174 Conn. 10,381 A.2d 532
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Charles M. RUSTICI et al. v. TOWN OF STONINGTON.

Page 532

381 A.2d 532

174 Conn. 10

Charles M. RUSTICI et al. v. TOWN OF STONINGTON.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 12, 1977.

Decided Nov. 22, 1977.

Bruce W. Manternach, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was H. Bissell Carey III, Hartford, for appellants (plaintiffs).

Joseph J. Purtill, Pawcatuck, for appellee (defendant).

Before HOUSE, C. J., and COTTER, LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI and LONGO, JJ.

COTTER, Associate Justice.

The plaintiffs, owners of land in the town of Stonington on which they operate a public golf course, appealed to the board of tax review for a reduction of their 1974 assessment; the board refused to make any change in the assessment and the plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. From a judgment dismissing that appeal they have appealed to this court.

The finding, which is not subject to material correction, discloses the following facts. The plaintiffs' land, the subject of this appeal, was declared "open space land" by the defendant town prior to the October 1, 1974 assessment, pursuant to §§ 12-107a through 12-107f of the General Statutes. It was developed and operated as an 18-hole public golf course by the plaintiffs, containing fairways, greens and rough area. On the tax list of October 1, 1974, the land was valued for assessment purposes as follows: 86 acres of fairway at $1500 per acre; 19 greens at $15,000 each; and 32 acres of rough space at $800 per acre for a total value of $439,600; and the assessment, computed at 70 percent of that total, amounted to $307,720. In determining the assessment, the town assessor used a combination of the comparable sales and the cost of improvement methods of valuation. The $800 per acre value of the rough area of the plaintiffs' golf course was based on comparable sales of raw land in the town of Stonington to which amount, in the case of fairways, $700 an acre was added for the cost of improvement, resulting in a valuation of $1500 per acre for each fairway. He valued the greens at $15,000 each based upon the average cost of construction of a green without consideration of the value of the underlying land.

In this appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the use of these valuation methods, claiming that the comparable sales and the cost of improvement methods are not appropriate for land designated as "open space" under § 12-63 of the General Statutes. ¹ This statute provides that the value of land classified as open space shall be based upon its current use, and in no event shall its valuation be less than it would be if such land was classified as farm land. Thus, the principal question presented in this appeal is whether the defendant's valuation of the plaintiffs' property reflected the current use value of that property as a golf course.

The applicable statutes do not delineate a particular formula for arriving at the value of open space land based upon its current use. It is clear, however, that preferential tax treatment is afforded farm, forest and open space lands pursuant to §§ 12-107a 12-107f of the General Statutes for the purpose of encouraging the preservation of property so designated by ensuring against the conversion of such land to more intensive uses as the result of higher property tax assessments. General Statutes § 12-107a. Thus, market value, a fundamental rule or standard of valuation of property taxation, must give way to an assessment based on the current use of the property, since as we have said, the declared purpose of the statute is intended to grant favorable treatment to such property to prevent its forced conversion to more intensive use. Rolling Hills Country Club, Inc. v. Board of Tax Review, 168 Conn. 466, 470, 473, 363 A.2d 61. In accordance with § 12-63, all other property not classified as farm land, forest land or open space land is to be valued at its fair market value. It is a basic rule of statutory construction that a statute is to be construed as a whole, United Aircraft Corporation v. Fusari, 163 Conn. 401, 411, 311 A.2d 65; and that it is presumed that the legislature acted in view of existing relevant statutes, Taminski v. Administrator, 168 Conn. 324, 328, 362 A.2d 868. In enacting § 12-63, the legislature intended that the current use value of open space land be less than what its fair market value might be.

In their brief, the plaintiffs concede: (1) that the capitalization of rentals method of valuation would not provide a reliable guide to the determination of the current use value of a golf course since the "incidence of rented golf courses is nonexistent in the Stonington area and probably in all Connecticut"; and (2) that the capitalization of earnings method in valuating this type of property is inappropriate because "most open space land generates no earnings whatever." Although the assessor used the capitalization of earnings approach in arriving at the current use value of land in Stonington designated as "farm land" and "forest land" under the provisions of § 12-63 of the General Statutes, in placing a valuation on the plaintiffs' land, as open space land, he resorted to a combination of the...