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Property taxes on the Garden Plaza buildings on Park Avenue have dropped by almost half a million dollars as the buildings crumble to the ground. The blight is impacting nearby properties, like the new Southport offices, where property taxes have dropped over a million dollars since 2021. This tax burden shifts to homeowners and renters, making housing increasingly unaffordable.
This graph shows the past five years of property taxes on my Renton Highlands home. This data can be easily generated for any property in Renton by using the “King County Tax Transparency Tool.”
Like many other Renton homeowners, I’ve seen my property taxes surge 50% in just four years. My 1959 one-story home has a tax-assessed value of $1,003,000, just one percent higher than the King County average assessment of $997,538. But the annual taxes are $3,334 higher than they were four years ago. and they’re likely to go much higher.
In 2001 Washington voters, concerned about being taxed out of their homes, approved initiative 747 to put a “1% cap” on the amount a taxing district could increase taxes. But this cap doesn’t apply when voters approve the increase, and (when applicable) the cap only applies to total taxes collected by a jurisdiction, not to individual properties. So some property owners can see big tax increases when other see reductions, even when the jurisdiction holds to a 1% increase overall. And taxes still go up even when region-wide property values drop. Hence, my 50 percent higher tax bill over four years could become a new pattern, regardless of whether property values go up or down in the future.
What would it look like if this rate of increase was the “new normal”? If we see 50% increases every four years, the way we have in the past four, this is our 20 year outlook:
My home’s property tax if we continue with 50% growth every four years
At the current rate of growth, in twenty years my home’s property taxes would be almost $80,000 per year, heavily impacting my retirement planning. People still working would also struggle– few homeowners could pay a mortgage and support a family with an $80,000 property tax payment. And renters will have the $7000 monthly tax bill added to their rent.
While this looks ridiculous, it could happen if local officials do not relearn the discipline of belt-tightening. The first step will be to admit they have a problem.
The City of Renton portion of my taxes has gone up 39% in the past four years, from $653 to $905. In a Q13 Fox report today, Mayor Pavone erroneously told David Rose: “Property taxes have gone up, but it has nothing to do with the City of Renton.” The Mayor was mistaken. Even with the voter-approved “1% cap” on total annual increases in city property tax collections, residential taxes can go up sharply when taxes drop on business properties like the ruined Park Avenue buildings and the former Red Lion Hotel. A friend of mine who heard the Mayor’s statement quipped, does that mean we don’t have to pay Renton’s increased taxes?
By hovering the cursor over the bars on King County’s Tax Transparency tool, one can quickly see the individual contributors to the taxes. My City of Renton property tax was $653 in 2021, the year I retired from City Council.
My City of Renton property tax increased to $905.37 by 2025, a 39% increase in four years.
Taxes across all taxing-districts are rising fast, with no end in sight. After a new King County Parks bond was approved in last month’s primary, Renton School District and Valley Medical Center are both asking Renton voters for more money in this November’s general election. The City of Renton is working on its own Park Bond ballot issue for next year, and Sound Transit feels they are about $30 billion dollars short, and talking about going to the polls for more. The other taxing districts will not be far behind. Our property tax increases are far out-pacing most people’s wage growth, and if our taxes keep rising at the current pace fewer and fewer people will qualify for home purchases or leases. Many more of our current residents will become unhoused.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We were able to actually lower city taxes in the past by diligently managing every penny of our tax revenues, and ensuring we maintained a thriving business climate. Our elected officials must focus on solving problems using the record amounts of money taxpayers are already giving them, not by constantly asking for more.
[Note: updated on September 20 with new second paragraph summarizing state tax structure and “1% cap,” in response to a question by “GoRedhawks!” in the comments ]
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