Homestead Tax Exemption Workshop On September 30
When: Tuesday, September 30 at 6:00 p.m.
Where: Charlestown Town Hall
What: A Town Council workshop to discuss options for implementation of a Homestead Tax Exemption for Charlestown
Who: This workshop is open to the public
At the Town Council’s April 14, 2025, meeting Councilor Carney made a proposal to request legislation from the General Assembly to allow Charlestown to enact a Homestead Exemption. That State legislation passed the General Assembly this summer and will go into effect on December 31, 2025.
The Town Council is now working out the details of what a Homestead Exemption would mean for Charlestown.
For the September 30th workshop, Ken Swain, the town’s Tax Assessor, has prepared materials showing what the resulting tax rate will be and the impact on tax bills for different kinds of property.
There are approximately 6,500 properties in town and 3,300 are homes that are owner-occupied by Charlestown residents. The 10% reduction in assessed value proposed under the Homestead law would reduce taxes for those 3,300 homes. Regardless of the value of the property or income of the residents, all 3,300 properties would receive the same 10% reduction.
The estimated loss of tax revenue from the reduction in assessment value is $1,272,604.98. This will require an increase in the current tax rate of 29.94 cents. The current rate would then go from $5.93 per $1,000 of assessed value to $6.25.
All residential and commercial properties would pay the new $6.25 tax rate on their assessment, but resident-owner-occupied homes would have slightly lower assessments.
The state legislature also passed the Non-Owner-Occupied Property Tax Act in 2025, which now assigns a yearly state property tax to these non-resident properties which can range from a $2,500 to $25,000 and more yearly tax payment.
Charlestown currently has one of the lowest tax rates in the state. It is unknown what the long-term impact will be of raising taxes on vacation homes and businesses.
The packet for this meeting with all the materials provided by the Tax Assessor is available at the Town’s website.
You can watch a live stream of the workshop, but you cannot participate online.
September 29, 2025 @ 2:35 pm
As stated the homestead tax exemption would create a tax increase to pay for it. We are told a .30 increase in the mill rate. Does this tax increase yield a significant savings for the qualified homesteader? Did I miss this in the packet?
It has been said 75% of annual tax collected comes from homes south of Route 1. Most of these homes are not occupied year round and provide minimum cost to the town and school budget. This is why our taxes are one of the lowest in RI. Also these homes provide income to business owners, vendors and property maintenance professionals. With the Taylor Swift tax might this additional increase be a disincentive for potential home buyers in this part of town? Difficult to predict long term negative effects to the economic health of our town and wider community. The Homestead ordinance needs more careful thought and consideration.
September 29, 2025 @ 1:24 pm
Appears Charlestown put the cart before the horse. Sounds like the increase of the tax rate to 6.25 was already in the pipeline and you had to offer a “homestead act” to make it palatable to all of us, meaning no one’s tax will go down, some will just get a smaller increase. If you leave everything as is, we won’t have a shortfall to fill. Surely the recently passed horrendous and possibly unconstitutional Taylor Swift tax and increase in conveyance tax (almost doubled) should take care of any shortfall quite nicely. But according to the Real Estate Institute of Rhode Island website, “Funds from both the conveyance tax hike and the non-owner surcharge will be channeled into: Expanding homlessness services, creating and supporting affordable housing and providing local tax credits for low-income homeowners” which translates into politicians will get the most of it. Charlestown will probably get nothing. Totally agree with Jake that creating different classes of taxpayers is unfair and frankly, stupid. The non residents use Charlestown’s services the least and can’t even vote. Many of us rent our homes already because of the high taxes and now in 2026 the tax on short-term rentals will increase from 8% to 14%, further eating into any money homeowners receive and/or encouraging renters to look elsewhere. We’ve all been to states like SC, FL, NC that actually appreciate their resident; it’s a shame Rhode Island is so user unfriendly.
September 29, 2025 @ 12:22 pm
I regards to this section.
“All residential and commercial properties would pay the new $6.25 tax rate on their assessment, but resident-owner-occupied homes would have slightly lower assessments.”
Why not have a different tax rate for owner occupied vs not?
If owner occupied homes are assessed at a lesser value, that may have and undesirable effect during the sale of such a home. While a tax assessment and an appraisal are not the same thing, buyers often like to reference a low assessment as a reason to expect a lower price when purchasing a home.
September 29, 2025 @ 3:12 pm
The assessments would be the same, but with a 10% exemption applied. The effective assessment that tax is paid on would be 10% lower, but the assessment would be determined first and would be the same no matter who owned or occupied the house.
September 30, 2025 @ 9:13 am
Thank you for the reply. That makes more sense.
September 27, 2025 @ 5:38 pm
Does CCA have a recommendation?
September 27, 2025 @ 3:34 pm
Without a doubt the homestead tax exemption would help out the full-time residents of Charlestown. The last assessment raised all values on everyone’s home which has brought in so much more money in tax revenues …. The increased property values is only realized if you sell the property. If you don’t sell you just end up paying more in taxes… So why increase the mill rate 29 cents… The deficit created by the exemption should be worked in to the budget and spend less…..
September 27, 2025 @ 9:42 am
What about undeveloped land, would it also pay higher taxes? Is this intended to force long-term land owners to sell their land to developers? Undeveloped land uses almost no services and protects our environment! I hope the Town Council is aware of all the unintended consequences of creating different classes of taxpayers – or I hope they could at least extend the exemption to our beautiful forested land. Some farmers have multiple parcels with their house on only one.
September 27, 2025 @ 10:09 am
In the examples provided by the Charlestown Tax Assessor from 13 Rhode Island municipalities (mostly cities) that do have this tax exemption, vacant land does not get the tax exemption and would therefore pay higher taxes. Some, but not all, vacant land is enrolled in Farm Forrest and Open Space, a state program that reduces taxes with a promise not to develop for 15 years. But if taxes go up 30 cents per thousand, I assume their tax bill would increase too. You can see the ordinances for all these other communities at the link in the post.