Arizona republican., 1913-12-18
TAXATION OFCITY
 PROPERTY BY SOMERS SYSTEM
James c. Stafford of Los Angeles Explains New Ideas of Appraiscment to Arizona Assessors at Tue son Convention
Especial to The Republican,

1 city property by an exact and sCien- i tific method known VariOusly over the
 United States, but chiefly recognized as the Somers system, was the chief | feature of the conventions discussions
 and address today.
 At the request of the Arizona state tax commission, James C. Stafford of Los Angeles, the executive secretary of l the California state realty federation. i addressed the convention of the tax 1 assessors. on the Somers system of real ! estate appraisement. MT Stafford de- | Iivered an address on this subject iI- lustrated with lantern slides. before 1 the ninth annual convention of the Cal 1 ifornia State Realty Federation on i October r at Hotel Del Monte, Califor-
 nia which aroused great interest in | this important matter among the real l estate men of California.
 i Through the interest and study 1 shown by MT. Stafford in the Somcrs system of real estate appraisement the matters was recently presented to the | city council, the City club and the Mu- nicipal league of Los Angeles by Wal | ter w. Pollock, president of the Manu- | facturers' Appraisal company. of Cleve- ] land which handles the installation of l the system in making appraisement of 1 1 Pollock was on the coast having come l west to close a contract with Portland l for the installation of the Somers sys- 1 tenn there and cam" south at MT. Staf- 1 ford's suggestion and outlined his pro position before the Los Angeles city ] organizations.
 1 Mir. Stafford said in the course of his address: "The Somers system of real 1 estate appraisement is a scientific sys- l tenn of arriving at the value of land or real estate based on carefully comput- l ed mathematical tables, which have l been perfected through years of study. | comparison of values and the exam l ination and appraisal of hundreds of thousands of lots and parcels of prop crty in fifteen cities of the United States. It is named after William A l Somers. who as city engineer of St Paul. Minn.. has evolved the system out of the chaos of existing assessment methods.
 ''It is founded on the law of the con stant effect of depth on the value of city sites. It consists of mathematical formulas and mechanical devices for using that law so that real and rela tive values of actual sites may be as Certained. It is based on the value of a unit foot of land which is taken as i the yard stick of measurement. from which the values of all surrounding sites are calculated. The community unites in fixing the value given that unit foot which is usually located in the middle of a city block being ar- praised. having but one street acces- sibility from which to gain it's value and it's use A Somers unit foot is a strip of land one foot wide and loo feet deep. Any interior or inside lot may be measured as to its value per front foot if of greater or less depth than loo feet i by the Somers depth per centage. which shows the value of each foot of depth receeding from the point of street ac- possibility.
 The most important point in this l depth per centage is that 7215 per cent
 of the value of loo feet of depth in the
 unit foot lies in the fifty feet nearest l the street: and for the third fifty feet ! of the depth but fifteen per cent of the 1 value Of the 100 foot unit is added. This
 rule varies but little from other rules ! accepted in the past for measuring the value of the depth of inside lots. and 1 differs from other rules in the fact that ! it gives more value to the part of the
 unit fronting the street, than do 1 other rules
 Land at and near corners is gener- ally agreed to be of greater value than ! that in the center of a block Under the Somers system this enhancement is | computed mathematically. instead of
 being guessed at The judgment of | land accessibility value having been | first expressed as of a Somers unit foof
 upon all frontage of a block that part
 ! which has but one street accessibility is
 computed by the depth percentage.
 This is the lowest frontage value upon
 a given block. Within approximately
 one hundred feet of the corners the en-
 hancement due to the street intersec-
 tion bgins. and this enhancement is under the SOmerS system computed in
 a mathematical ratio to the compara-
 tive value of the intersecting street in
 combination with the size and shape
 of the lot, and it's location to the vari-
 Ous elements of accessibility. If there
 is an alley, the value of accessibility
 to the different lots is proportioned to
 the number of feet each lot is abuts on the alley
 'In computing the value of the lots within the corner influence an imagin- ary 100 foot lot at corner is erected. This in turn is subdivided into 100
 squares each ten feet square. Each lot coming within the 100 foot area is agramed in it's exact location The Somers corner table show the value of each ten-fOot square for every com bination of unit values. and when the value of theu nit foot has been de- termined upon the four block frontages s the lots having corner influence can be designated and appraised relatively, in somewhat the same manner that the banker computes the interest on a note "Given the factors of street accessi- bility value upon all frontages of q I block a lot of a certain size. and shape with a certain relation to a given cor s her, has a certain value. Any change 3 however slight. in size. shape. relation