One owner tells his story
By Bobbi Mlynar
Originally published 01:15 p.m., November 8, 2007
Updated 01:15 p.m., November 8, 2007
The only thing Ben Schubert can find wrong with Emporia’s Neighborhood Revitalization is that not enough people know about it.
Schubert and his wife, Jennifer, bought a house at 831 Cottonwood St. in August 2006, intending to renovate it inside and out. They’d planned to handle the costs themselves, and at this point, that’s what they are doing.
When the house is completed, however, and the improvements are added to the property-tax rolls, the Schuberts will see a modest return on their investment in the form of tax rebates for the next 10 years.
All they need to do each year is pay the taxes in full by the deadline to continue to be eligible for the rebates. The first seven years, they will receive a 95-percent rebate on taxes paid on the extra value they added to their home; for the last three years, they will receive 50-percent rebates.
Owners of commercial property receive 80-percent rebates on the tax differences for three years, 65 percent for three years, and 50 percent for the final five years.
Owners of multi-family dwellings receive 95 percent for five years and 50 percent for the next five years.
Schubert said he learned about the program through Fred Gilligan, a co-worker at Birch Telecom. Gilligan told him about a program that his wife, Patty Gilligan, was in charge of for the City of Emporia.
“I’m so glad he did,” Schubert said. “Otherwise, it would be something I would never have heard about.”
He wishes that information could be handed out to anyone applying for a building permit in the designated Neighborhood Revitalization areas.
“Just think what that would do to the value in the neighborhood,” he said. “You clean things up, make things look nice.
“Number One, it changes your tax base because it changes your appraisals, too, but at the same time, you have a nicer place to promote. You don’t have run-down neighborhoods if those neighborhoods are being improved.”
Schubert also was happy about getting a little tax relief to alleviate the cost of the extensive renovations that are underway.
“Up to this point, it’s just been encouragement to me,” he said. “I haven’t gotten the benefit of it yet.”
He expects the property to approximately double in value.
“At the same time, our taxes won’t double. I’ll get a rebate for the next 10 years,” he said.
Until the first floor is completed, the Schuberts are living on the second floor.
They’ve done most of the work themselves. They tore off an old porch and improved a side porch, giving the property an updated look. They’ve replaced an upstairs window with a door that soon will open onto a tongue-in-groove balcony deck. All but three of the replacement windows already have been installed, and the new replacement siding is about 60 percent complete. The house, built in 1900, had original siding nailed directly to the studs with no sheeting. They removed all that and wrapped the house in Tyvek before adding the siding.
Schubert said the Tyvek had brought an amusing story from a teacher at William Allen White School across the street. A kindergarten teacher in May had asked students to write down all of the nouns they could see.
“No one had talked and no one had communicated with anyone in the classroom,” he said, “but she noticed that almost everyone had written down the same word: Tyvek.”
She asked the class what “Tyvek” meant.
“One little boy held up his hand. ‘That means house. It’s written all over that house,’” Schubert said.
Inside the Tyvek house, the first floor has been completely gutted. They have torn off old walls that were layers of panels, sheetrock and plaster-and-lath, and are replacing them with new sheetrock. Flooring, appliances and fixtures will follow.
The house is being completely rewired and replumbed and new bathroom fixtures added, with the exception of a deep, old clawfoot bathtub. Room sizes and shapes have been adjusted as necessary and the new 2- by 12-inch floor joists put in to support a re-sized upstairs bathroom have made it more stable. That small 7-by-7 bathroom now stretches to a more comfortable 8-by-10.
The Schuberts have added insulation along with the new siding to give them a “much more airtight house,” in addition to the savings they’ll reap in energy costs.
The only frustration encountered so far was a difficulty in finding a professional roofer to do the job.
“We had three contractors back out on us on the roofing project,” Schubert said, adding that was before the hail storm that has kept roofers busy for most of the year. “I was hoping to have the roof finished in the fall” of 2006.
“I used up most of my vacation doing the roof initially, and then we’ve worked on the house weekends and evenings,” he said.
“When we’re done, we’re really going to have a new house with an old skeleton.”