OTISFIELD – Selectman Len Adler said the Heniger Park lease deal is a longtime “free ride” that is finally over.
The Board of Selectmen did not mince words Wednesday night after reading a lengthy advertisement in the Sun Media Group newspapers, paid for and written by the Heniger Park Association. The association faulted the board for rejecting its offer for what it said would be a fairer and more equitable new lease.
“This is the lease. If you don’t like it, take your house and go,” Adler said at the board meeting.
Only eight of the 37 leaseholders in Heniger Park on Pleasant Lake signed new 99-year leases with the town by the April 30 deadline.
The 100-acre park of mostly wooded land on the west shore of the lake was left to the town in 1943 by noted Broadway producer Jacob Heniger. His will stipulated that the Board of Selectmen decide what would be done with the real estate.
In 1965, the first Heniger Park leases were drawn up between the town and camp owners for fees ranging from $0 to $50 per year for 50 years. Leaseholders were allowed to build camps, paying taxes on the full value of structures.
Under the new agreements, the value for lakefront lots is $213,000 and back lots is $44,340. A land capitalization rate of 2.2 percent is applied as the lease fee. Buildings are taxed at $12 per thousand dollars of assessed value.
If all 37 had signed new leases, property taxes were expected to increase from $9,528 to $100,551 annually, based on the current tax rate.
“We did negotiate in what I think was good faith,” Selectman Chairman Hal Ferguson said. The town spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours “going back and forth” with the Heniger Park Association, he said.
The new lease was developed by a committee and selectmen, with input from leaseholders and others, over two years. In June 2014, voters backed selectmen’s efforts to change the terms to reflect values of other Pleasant Lake camp properties.
The agreement gave leaseholders the opportunity to continue the arrangement with the town for the next 99 years at 10-year increments, or let their leases run out.
The board conceded to 14 of the 28 association requests over the past few months, including agreeing to work with financial institutions by extending the 10-year incremental lease to a 20-year incremental lease to allow for a longer mortgage. The latest request for lease changes by the association was received four days before the April 30 deadline, he said.
Selectman Rick Micklon said the board would not entertain discussing issues involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federally-backed loan agencies.
“Times are changing. We get that,” Micklon said. “Our attorney advised us not to get involved in the lending. We’re not in the business to help people sell their property.”
Micklon said the lease is essentially the same as it has been, but it is on a longer-term basis. He said most of the changes revolve around environmental issues.
“We’re about protecting Pleasant Lake,” he said. “We wanted to work with the stewards of the lake.”
Micklon also took issue with criticism about limited discussion between the Heniger Park Association and the board. Micklon said there have been multiple public meetings, including selectmen meetings and a public hearing on the revised terms of the lease.
“We’ve done everything we can do to address things,” he said.
Association members said in their advertisement that they made an offer to the board that met all the board’s goals and would enable standard mortgage financing for prospective buyers.
The association said 29 Heniger Park leaseholders were willing to terminate their current leases and sign the revised lease if favorable lending terms could be added to the lease. The group said if they signed, the town would receive $144,000 in “up-front” new revenue.
Micklon said there are no “up-front” leases and therefore no “up-front” money.
Ferguson said the accusation was “erroneous and embellished.”
The association also claimed that the surrender clause, in which the town takes ownership of a camp if the leaseholder fails to renew his or her lease, is “patently unfair,” calling it a “punishment” after paying years of taxes on the property.
Micklon said it is impossible to “move forward” if one entity owns the land and another the camp. If the lease is surrendered, selectmen say they will put the lease out to bid. The camp owner has the right to move his or her camp, destroy it or leave it on site.
ldixon@sunmediagroup.net
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