What are your Village taxes as a Lake Orion lakefront property owner?

Look it up to see what it was 10 years ago.  Does it now seem high?

Well, it is high compared to many other lakeshore owners who don’t pay any taxes on their lakefront.  They are getting a free ride on taxes as decided by the Village who own their lakeshore.  So, they don’t have to pay taxes on their lakefront.

Quite a deal eh!

Well, I am upset by the fact that I pay taxes on my entire lakefront property including the lakeshore but other Lake Orion lakefront people don’t?

Over a year ago I proposed to the Village Council that the Village give the landowners across the road their Lake Orion lakeshore property currently owned by the village for a transfer payment of several hundred dollars that would allow the Village to tax them on their entire property.  We pay taxes and so should they right?  It’s really a good deal for all involved – the land owners finally own the land they have been using for the last 100 years and the Village gets tax money they never have before gotten.

Let’s estimate that the missing additional tax village income would be $100.00 per parcel times for about 100 parcels equals approximately $10,000.00 a year of additional tax income for say 50 years equals $500,000.00 missing from the village coffers.  Enough to pay for a newer street sweeper.

These people live on Lakepoint, Buena Vista and Bellevue Ave. across the road from the lakeshore they have invested thousands of dollars of improvements into.

Read that that includes road retaining walls fronting the lakeshore on Lakepoint plus breakfront lakeshore retaining walls, docks, decks, sandy swimming areas and in some cases boathouses on other homes on Buena Vista and Bellevue Ave.  All these improvements were done on Village property over the last 100 years and the Village let them do that and maintain the property properly without a word of concern because the Village wasn’t doing it anyway.

And nobody else was the wiser of all this craziness until the Village Ordinance Officer began last year marking for towing boats, trailers, cars and trucks parking for more than 48 hours across the road on the Village lakeshore property.  Whoa! People had parked there for 70 or so years now they need to move their vehicles, trailers and boats?

All this is simply stupid crazy business for all concerned with no explanation from the Village for how this came about over 100 years ago.  The Township doesn’t own lakeshore property on Heights Road – the owners across the road do and they pay taxes on it.  So why does the village own lakeshore property and not get any taxes from it?

However, the Village Council President told me the other day that they weren’t going to do anything about it because it was too confusing and complicated.

That’s contrary to what my lawyer told me.  He said the ownership could be transferred without a lot of difficulty and expense.

My suggestion to all this goofiness and wrongness is to raise enough hell with the Village that it finally gets handled after 100 years of lazy stupidity.  We do this by every lakefront owner asking for a back tax penalty refund until they fix the problem.  And those poor people on Lakepoint, Buena Vista and Bellevue Ave. to also raise hell with the Village to finally get ownership of what they have taken care of for the last 100 years.

Any questions – call me – I am in the phone book.

Fred Fleming
Lake Orion