Final Clubs Jointly Appeal City Tax Hike

All but one of Harvard's nine selective all-male social clubs has all-joined together is challenging a City of Cambridge assesment which in more than doubled their taxes.

The coalition of eight final clubs which includes all but the Fly Club are protesting a 1984 decision by the city assessor that reclassified all final club property as commercial. An owner of commercial property pays $34.64 per $1000 of assessed property value as opposed to a $15.26 rate for residential properties.

The State Appellate Tax Board will most likely hear he case this summer said Steven C. Douglas, an administrator of the Board.

The Fly Club will appeal separately.

A 1982 state law defines fraternities and sororities as residential organizations, but social clubs which do not house people on a permanent basis, such as the B.P.O. Elks, are classified as commercial properties, said Jane H. Malme, chief of the bureau of local assessment in the State Department of Revenue.

This law also allowed the city to set up the different tax rates for commercial and residential properties, said Arnold Bloom, the eight clubs in the appeal of the classification.

The city will argue that according the law, because nobody in fact lives in the final clubs, they should be classified as commercial properties, City Assessor Robert Reardon said.

The clubs are disputing the higher tax rates because they contend they are fraternities, Bloom said, adding that the matter of permanent residence is not the cruse of the issue. In a case now before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Appelate Tax Board ruled that a nursing home is a commercial property despite the fact that people live there, he said.

By July 1 of this year the University will never all new with the clubs, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III said. He added the administration has not been involved in the classification issue.

"The university expresses concern over how their clubs are managed," but they will not be able to after they never ties with the clubs, Bloom said. "They can't have it both ways."