Citizens of Virginia Beach Against Real Estate Tax Increase

A Petition of the Citizens of Virginia Beach
Presented to the Virginia Beach City Council

WHEREAS Virginia Beach 2007 residential real estate assessments have increased by an average of 21.4 percent, and

WHEREAS annual real estate tax increases have risen more than six times greater than the increase in the Consumer Price Index, and

WHEREAS Section 58.1-3321 of the Code of Virginia requires that when any annual assessment of real property would result in an increase of 1 percent or more in the total real property tax levied, the city shall reduce its rate of levy for the forthcoming tax year so as to cause such rate of levy to produce no more than 101 percent of the previous year's real property tax levies, and

WHEREAS Section 2-186.1 of the Municipal Code of the City Of Virginia Beach requires the city manager to prepare an annual budget using no more than the previous fiscal year's real estate tax levies plus any additional real estate revenues resulting from new development, and

WHEREAS we citizens of Virginia Beach require our City Council to be good stewards of our public funds,

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of Virginia Beach shall establish a revised tax rate of no more than $0.78 per hundred dollars of assessed value for all residential real estate property for the 2007-2008 tax year. Be it further resolved that all future real estate tax increases shall be limited to the increase in the Consumer Price Index.

This petition is submitted by the following citizens of the City of Virginia Beach: