John D. Castleman told the Marshall County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals on Oct. 30 that the assessed value on his Culver home should be reduced to reflect blight and declining marketability caused by two subsidized apartment complexes across his dead-end street.

Castleman said he bought the vacant lot in 2018 for substantially less than the county's assessed value, that he built a house there in 2021, and that the county later applied a roughly 40% land-influence adjustment based on his purchase price. "I bought the lot in 2018 under the assessed value," Castleman said, and he showed photographs he said document ongoing trash, discarded furniture, and a prior interior ceiling collapse at one apartment unit.

The county's representative acknowledged the appeal history and said staff applied a land influence after observing the purchase price and surrounding market conditions. "We had a valuation assigned that didn't take into account the neighboring properties when he first purchased it," the county representative said, and the assessor's office has retained the land influence applied following the purchase. County staff said sales in the Culver area have risen substantially in recent years, with many homes now selling above $300,000, and that their sales-comparison analysis supports a valuation of $329,600 for the subject parcel.

Castleman told the board the nearby apartment complex's property card showed an apparent drop in assessed value after a form 1-30 filing (from about $627,000 to about $216,000, as he cited) and said he had observed code violations and persistent refuse that reduced his street's appeal to buyers. He proposed three remedies: reapply the roughly 46.5% discount he said reflected obsolescence to this year's 17% increase; cap his annual assessed increase at 5%; or reassign his house to a different neighborhood comparison.

County staff explained why they did not automatically reapply a fixed discount each year. The assessor's office said the 465% influence originated from the observed difference between Castleman's purchase price and prior valuations, but staff emphasized that annual valuation changes are driven by current sales evidence and an annual market study. The county also described state guidance that uses a 5% figure in appeals procedure to frame burden-of-proof expectations.

Board members asked clarifying questions about the origin of the 46.5% figure, the year-to-year variance in assessment changes on nearby streets, and how the assessor's office conducts neighborhood-level market studies. County staff said low counts of sales in a given year can create larger swings in neighborhood-level adjustments and that state guidelines require them to bring neighborhoods into compliance with the prescribed level of assessment when sales indicate such changes.

The hearing record shows extensive discussion but no formal board decision announced on the record at the time the hearing was concluded.