When the owner of property on Paiute Boulevard wanted to rezone it from rural estates to neighborhood commercial at the Dec. 10 Pahrump Regional Planning Commission meeting, RPC member Carrick "Bat" Masterson gave him some advice with tongue in cheek.

"In Pahrump right now we're losing population, and it's tough times out there, as anybody in my business can tell you. But the only advantages someone is going to have in changing their zoning is they're going to pay a lot more taxes. If that's what they love to do, I'm not against it."

The RPC voted 3-2 to authorize a zoning change for a shopping center.

Masterson, a real estate agent with Access Realty, said he's heard from people complaining about their tax bills going up after their property was rezoned commercial.

The approval of the comprehensive zoning map in Pahrump in June 2007 resulted in a mass conversion of many properties to commercial. The old zones implemented in 2000 merely designated properties as open use, except for highway frontage zones along Highway 160, Highway 372 and Bell Vista Avenue.

Vicki Hafen Scott, a member of the Hafen family of developers, said a Dec. 1 decision by the Nevada Tax Commission could qualify some of those properties rezoned commercial to the 3 percent or 8 percent tax cap implemented by the state legislature in 2005.

"Some owners whose zoning was altered by Nye County were billed for large increases because the authorized use of their property changed. In some cases the increases were 10-fold or more, even if the owner did not actually change the way the property was used," Scott said.

The regulations needed to be revised to provide guidance to county assessors to account for actual improvements or changes made to the property, she said.

"Anyone who was in the highway frontage zone and submitted a zoning application may clearly be due a refund if they file an appeal. Owners in the open-use zone had more restricted uses available and should appeal any increase as well as discuss it with the assessor," Scott said.

The removal of the 3 percent or 8 percent abatement by the county assessor's office may have been incorrectly applied in a number of cases, she said.

The assessor's office sent out property valuations Dec. 18. But Scott said property owners won't know until their tax bill arrives in June -- which will show the assessed value, the tax due and the amount of tax after the 3 percent and 8 percent tax cap -- whether the tax abatement is applied correctly.

Carole Villardo, president of the Nevada Property Taxpayers Association, said Pahrump property owners with highway frontage got revalued not because of something they did or because of market forces. They should have lost their ability to qualify for the tax cap only on the difference between the old and new property values, called incremental value, she said.

"It set up conditions under which, when you did not request a change in zoning, you still maintain the cap," Villardo said. "The regulation establishes the bright lines as to when you lose the cap. It makes it very clear, and if you lose the cap it's only on incremental value, not the entire value, and it also makes very clear that normal appreciation of property because of market forces does not cause a loss of the cap."

The idea is that the person who buys the newly rezoned commercial property would build something on it, at which time it would generate increased value, Villardo said.

"You have to do something that substantailly changes the value of the property. Something needs to happen with the property," Villardo said.

Scott said property owners who feel they have been removed from the tax cap unfairly have until Jan. 15 to petition the county assessor, who has 30 days to render a decision. A taxpayer who wants to appeal the assessor's decision may appeal to the Nevada Tax Commission within 30 days after that.

That is not to be confused with appeal of property values unrelated to the tax cap, which are appealed to the Nye County Board of Equalization, which meets in January.

Nye County Assessor Sandy Musselman said she's awaiting a response to questions she had for the Nevada Department of Taxation on how to handle the appeals.

Mussleman referred to Nevada Revised Statute 361.227 which states the taxable value of real property shall be appraised by considering the uses of vacant land with any legal or physical restrictions, the character of the terrain and uses of other land in the vicinity.

"You have a number of properties that went from an open-use value to general commercial, neighborhood commercial, which is a higher use," Musselman said. "You're going to pay more for a lot you can put a gas station on or a convenience store.

"When they did the zoning they changed a lot of properties to a higher use, making them more valuable when it's time to sell, when the market's good. Where the problem lies is at what point do they fall out of that category of paying taxes on a residential property as opposed to a commercial property?"

Some properties on Highway 160 had deed restrictions as residential under the old Calvada development that were then rezoned commercial with the approval of the zoning map in June 2007, Musselman said.

"We kept our values minimal because you didn't know what they were going to do," she said. "We were conservative prior to zoning; we valued them as residential. Then when they changed the use we would value it based on its use. Now with the zoning, they have been told these are the specific uses.

"On the open market when the market is good, they can go out and say this is commercial property. You can put a commercial use for this property."

The appeal of the abatements combined with the appeal of property values to the Board of Equalization due to the declining economy is expected to make for a busy January for the assessor's office.

"People just believe their property is worthless. You have to look at it and decide if it is, just give it away," Musselman said sarcastically, reflecting some of her frustration dealing with the issue. "The market is falling, I'm not going to deny that."

Land is reappraised every year. Improvements are appraised on replacement cost or a factor provided by the state, Musselman said. While land prices have dropped, the cost of improvements have risen because of replacement costs, she said.

"The girls are reviewing the market again to see if there's any lowering we can do," Musselman said.

But she said her office is required to look at property values from June of the prior year.

"Now we're trying to look at June '08 into December '08 to see if we can make some further corrections," Musselman said. "Our market isn't good right now. Nobody's buying, nobody's selling, we're just seeing foreclosures. People are buying them as cheap as they can from the banks."