The owner of a median-value single-family home in Chelsea would pay about $280 more in property tax this fiscal year, and the owner of a median two-family about $577 more, under projections the city’s assessors gave the City Council ahead of a public hearing set for Monday, November 16.
The figures come from Chief Assessor Jim Sullivan’s presentation to the council’s Conference subcommittee on October 27. The slides are in the council’s November 2 meeting packet, and the committee’s minutes were posted on the city website this week. Every number is marked subject to approval by the state Department of Revenue.
What the assessors project for owner-occupied homes
The table assumes the council again adopts the 35 percent residential exemption, which applies only to owners who live in the property as their principal residence. It compares a fiscal 2027 bill on the median assessed value with the average fiscal 2026 bill for the same class of property.
- Single-family (828 parcels): median value $547,450. Projected bill $3,195.53, up $280.37 from an average of $2,915.16. That is about $23 a month, or 9.62 percent.
- Condominium (2,061 parcels): median value $420,000. Projected bill $1,680.15, up $152.92 from $1,527.23. About $13 a month, or 10.01 percent.
- Two-family (1,200 parcels): median value $719,950. Projected bill $5,246.56, up $577.25 from $4,669.30. About $48 a month, or 12.36 percent.
- Three-family (935 parcels): median value $902,700. Projected bill $7,419.45, up $630.94 from $6,788.51. About $53 a month, or 9.29 percent.
Owners who do not live in their property do not get the exemption. The same table puts the tax on those median values before the exemption at $6,509.18 for a single-family, $4,993.80 for a condominium, $8,560.21 for a two-family and $10,733.10 for a three-family.
The rates
The residential rate is projected at $11.89 per $1,000 of assessed value, up from $11.48. The commercial rate is projected at $24.74, up from $23.79. Chelsea taxes commercial, industrial and personal property at a higher rate than homes, and the assessors expect the shift this year to come to 174.99 percent, a hair under the 175 percent maximum the city has adopted in past years.
The exemption removes an estimated $278,692 of value from an owner-occupied home’s tax bill. The presentation rounds the savings to $3,315; the bill table uses $3,313.65.
Why bills can rise more than 2.5 percent
Proposition 2 1/2 caps the growth of the city’s total tax levy, not any one bill. The presentation puts last year’s maximum levy at $87,747,162 and this year’s at $91,566,058, which includes $1,699,272 from new growth. How that total is divided depends on how each class of property changed in value.
Median assessed values moved this way from fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2027, the assessors reported: single-family up 2.71 percent, condominiums up 1.92 percent, two-family up 4.98 percent, three-family up 3.71 percent, apartment buildings of four or more units down 6.42 percent, commercial up 1 percent and industrial up 7.9 percent. The values are as of January 1, 2026, and rest on sales from calendar year 2025.
The slides say commercial and industrial properties “will bear less of the brunt of the increase in the tax levy in Fiscal Year 2027,” and that with the shift and the exemption, “tax increases for most 1-3 families and condos will be more than last year.”
The two votes
City Manager Fidel Maltez has asked the council to hold the hearing at its November 16 meeting and vote the same night on two orders: 26F53, which sets the shift onto commercial, industrial and personal property, and 26F54, the 35 percent residential exemption. He wrote that the schedule lets the city send tax bills by December 31. The Conference subcommittee recommended both by voice vote on October 27.
The council’s regular meetings begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 500 Broadway. The November 16 agenda was not yet on the city website Wednesday morning. One record disagrees on the date: the council’s October 19 minutes list the hearing for November 19, a Thursday, while the manager’s two letters and the committee report all say November 16.
Other relief on the books
The presentation also lists exemptions that some homeowners can apply for through the assessors’ office:
- Clause 17E: age 70 or older, owned and lived in the home for five years, no income limit, assets under $56,753 for a single person or $78,037 for a married couple. Worth $250 to $499.
- Clause 41D: age 65 or older, income under $28,378 single or $42,566 married, assets under $55,753 single or $78,037 married. Worth $1,000 to $2,000 a year.
- Disabled veterans: $845 to $1,690 for those rated 10 to 90 percent disabled, and $2,113 to $4,227 for those rated 100 percent. The presentation says the state HERO Act doubled veteran benefits starting in fiscal 2026.
The senior tax freeze
The same subcommittee voted 1-6 against Councillor Giovanni Recupero’s home rule petition to exempt income-eligible homeowners 65 and older from property tax increases. The minutes record Recupero as the only yes. Councillors Todd Taylor, Roberto Jimenez-Rivera, Deron Hines, Lisa Santagate, Norieliz DeJesus and Calvin Brown voted no, and Councillor Leo Robinson recused himself over a potential conflict of interest.
According to the minutes, the city solicitor told the committee that some councillors could have a conflict because they would benefit financially, and Sullivan said a freeze would raise taxes proportionately on every other property owner. The full council sent the petition to a public hearing on November 2. No date for that hearing has been posted.
Our earlier report explains what the committees had before them.