Connecticut’s proposed ‘mansion tax’ won’t only hit the state’s Gold Coast. Here are the top 10 towns and cities in Hartford County that would feel the pinch

The controversial “mansion tax” proposed in the legislature this year — a state property tax imposed on homes valued at $430,000 or above — would clearly hit tony towns along Connecticut’s Gold Coast the hardest, but the tax would ripple into the heart of the state.

Home value data for Connecticut’s 169 towns and cities crunched by Irvine, Calif.-based ATTOM Data Solutions shows that tens of thousands of single-family houses and condominiums in Hartford County would be subject to the tax. An analysis by The Courant found the top 10 municipalities in the county with the most properties includes not only West Hartford and Glastonbury but Southington and Berlin.

Hartford, the poorest among all Connecticut cities, didn’t make the top 10, but it still had 627 residential properties that hit the value threshold.

Mansion tax may be a bit of a misnomer given the state’s hot housing market and rising sale prices, pushing more residential properties into the sights of the new tax. Last year, the statewide median sale price — where half the sales are above, half below — soared 15% compared with 2019.

The proposal is for a one mill — or $1 for every $1,000 of assessed value — tax on homes assessed at more than $300,000 or those with a market value of $430,000 or more.

In Southington, town officials say they aren’t surprised their town made the top 10. Southington, they say, encompasses 36 square miles, boasts easy access to highways and has a quintessential New England town center, complete with white-steepled congregational church.

But like many opponents to the tax, they see Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney’s plan as penalizing middle-class property owners. The idea, which Looney has raised previously, is to raise $73 million a year as part of a package to provide property for cash-strapped communities like Looney’s hometown of New Haven.

“I an not so surprised to see that people choose to live here no matter what size their home,” Republican Victoria Triano, chairwoman of the Southington Town Council, said. “But the idea of paying property tax only to be charged a state property tax is outrageous. It is punishing those individuals who choose to live in a larger home.”

The tax proposal faces an uphill battle in the legislature, especially when Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, says he doesn’t support new taxes, given an improved financial picture for the state even amid the pandemic.

Here are the top 10 towns in Hartford County with the most single-family houses and condos that would come up against the tax. The median sale price is for single-family houses and the percentage change is for 2020 on a year-over-year basis. A statue Noah Webster, a native of West Hartford, is known for his American Spelling Book and his dictionary of the English language. This statue stands near the town’s Blue Back Square, named for Webster’s “Blue Back Speller” textbook. One thing to know : The American School for the Deaf, located on North Main Street since 1921, is the birthplace […]

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