Treat PILOTs As Property Taxes

Section 1. Subdivision 15 of section 858 of the general municipal law, as added by chapter 356 of the laws of 1993, is amended to read as follows:

(15) To enter into agreements requiring payments in lieu of taxes. Such agreements shall be in writing and in addition to other terms shall contain: the amount due annually to each affected tax jurisdiction (or a formula by which the amount due can be calculated), the name and address of the person, office or agency to which payment shall be delivered, the date on which payment shall be made, and the date on which payment shall be considered delinquent if not paid. Unless otherwise agreed by the affected tax jurisdictions, any such agreement shall provide that payments in lieu of taxes shall be allocated among affected tax jurisdictions in proportion to the amount of real property tax and other taxes which would have been received by each affected tax jurisdiction had the project not been tax exempt due to the status of the agency involved in the project. A copy of any such agreement shall be delivered to each affected tax jurisdiction within fifteen days of signing the agreement. In the absence of any such written agreement, payments in lieu of taxes made by an agency shall be allocated in the same proportions as they had been prior to January first, nineteen hundred ninety-three for so long as the agency's activities render a project non-taxable by affected tax jurisdictions. Notwithstanding any other general, special or local law, payments under such agreements may be designated as "taxes or other lawful charges" by the agency entering

EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets

[ ] is old law to be omitted.

LBD05710-01-9

S. 945 2

into such agreements. Upon such designation, and for the period that payments are made under the respective agreements, the amounts due shall become liens on the subject property, with priority superior to all existing and future claims or encumbrances on the subject property. The lien shall attach on a calendar year basis on February first of each calendar year in an amount equal to all payments due under the respective agreements in said calendar year and said lien shall have priority and parity as if a tax lien under section nine hundred twelve of the real property tax law. The agency may bring an action to collect amounts due after said lien date under section eleven hundred twenty-three of the real property tax law as the enforcing officer, subject to complying with title three of article eleven of the real property tax law, excepting, however, section eleven hundred twenty-two of the real property tax law where in lieu thereof, the agency shall file the subject agreement in the county clerk's office with a designation of payments which are delinquent;

§ 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after it shall have become a law.