Many residents’ tax bills will more than double in West and Southwest Philly next year, and they want answers

Zyair Bryant is rarely home. He works two jobs, as a hospice aide in Montgomery County and a security guard in Center City, to pay the bills.

Now, one of Bryant’s bills is set to more than double in the next year.

As a result of the city’s latest property assessments, released in August, his annual property tax bill will increase from $957 to $2,206 for 2025.

Bryant, 58, purchased his three-bedroom Kingsessing home in 2021 for $175,000. The taxable value of his property, under the city’s reassessment, increased from $68,400 to $157,800.

“This is a lot,” said Bryant. “I’m never in my home to enjoy it. You just got to work to maintain it.”

Bryant is not alone. Assessments for single-family homes in Kingsessing, a Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood where gentrification has driven up home prices in recent years, increased more than in any other city neighborhood. The neighborhood’s assessments, which are used to calculate property tax bills, rose by 50% on average, compared with the citywide average of 23%. Homes in the same census tract as Bryant’s had an average increase of 79%, according to an Inquirer analysis.

Kingsessing, like other neighborhoods that were hit with the largest increases, is majority Black. In census tracts where the median assessment rose by at least 50% from 2024 to 2025, The Inquirer’s analysis found that almost three quarters of those tracts’ combined residents are Black. In tracts where assessments increased the least, the poverty rate is lower than the city average, and nearly two-thirds of the residents are white.

The Office of Property Assessments follows industry standards for fairness and accuracy and says its valuation methodology has improved over time. Still, a prior Inquirer analysis found that assessments are more likely to be inaccurate in mostly Black and low-income neighborhoods, and are more likely to be accurate in mostly white, higher-income neighborhoods. The city has not yet released documents detailing methodology for this year’s assessments.

Hard-hit homeowners interviewed about the latest revaluation complained of feeling left in the dark by city officials and politicians about the assessment process and tax relief programs. And some said they worry they will be priced out of their homes as gentrification continues in their neighborhoods.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier — whose West Philadelphia district includes Kingsessing — said she agrees neighbors need more information and notice about property assessments and tax relief programs.

“This is something that Council has pushed OPA on for the past several years,” she said, adding that Council allocated $1 million in the latest budget for the administration “to do education and engagement around tax relief programs.”

James Aros Jr., the city’s chief assessment officer, said OPA and the Department of Revenue attend meetings with community organizations to answer questions about assessments and tax relief.

The city is also sending informational letters to more than 200,000 households “imminently,” said Joe Grace, a spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, and will use the $1 million allocation to distribute materials in targeted neighborhoods and run radio and television ads about tax relief programs.

“The administration is taking a very energetic stance,” Grace said.

The city offers several property tax relief and exemption programs, like the homestead exemption, which knocks $100,000 off the taxable value of an owner-occupied property. About 69% of eligible homeowners are currently enrolled in the homestead exemption program for tax year 2025, Aros said. The deadline to enroll ahead of the 2025 tax year is Dec. 1.

Tax bills are due in March.

Sebastian Ikpe, a 66-year-old construction worker, said he has lived in his West Philadelphia home since 1996 and is among the residents who are not enrolled in any relief programs. Property assessments for single-family homes in his census tract increased by an average of 103% under the city’s latest revaluation.

Ikpe’s property assessment more than doubled, from less than $50,000 under the last reassessment two years ago to nearly $106,000 for the 2025 tax year. That means his tax bill will increase from $676 to $1,480.

“Dang, it’s going to be difficult,” Ikpe said when an Inquirer reporter told him about his new assessment. “It’s going to be difficult for me.”

If Ikpe had the homestead exemption, his tax bill would be only $80 annually under his new assessment. But he said he’d never heard about the program.

He said he’d recently finished paying back taxes on the property and hopes to change the windows and doors and update his electrical and plumbing systems.

“I can’t afford to retire,” he said.

In Kingsessing, Bryant doesn’t have the homestead exemption, either. He didn’t know about any relief programs.

“They won’t offer you any help,” he said of OPA, which he called out of frustration after receiving his new value. “They didn’t offer anything.”

Monty Wilson, a senior attorney at Community Legal Services, said homeowner tax relief programs make Philadelphia a model for other cities.

“Philadelphia has been absolutely proactive in trying to help homeowners who live in their homes keep their homes,” he said, adding more on-the-ground engagement would help get the word out.

Diane Settles, 67, leads the Kingsessing Area Civic Association, serves as committeeperson for the city Democratic Party, and contacts her elected officials on a regular basis. She’s enrolled in the homestead exemption and the senior citizen tax freeze, an income-eligible program for people over 65. If she hadn’t been, Settles’ taxes would have risen from about $1,700 to nearly $2,800 next year. But with the help of that program, her taxes won’t change.

She has successfully appealed her assessment with the city and plans to appeal again this year. Still, Settles believes the city needs to do a better job educating homeowners.

“We feel as though we deserve to have answers to why this is happening, and we deserve from our politicians to know why,” said Settles.

Settles said she has made it her mission to “tell everybody that I know” about the senior tax freeze.

The city has three major relief programs — the homestead exemption, the longtime owner-occupants program that decreases tax bills for residents who have lived in their homes at least 10 years, and the senior tax freeze, for low-income seniors. A new relief program championed by Gauthier will soon launch for low-income homeowners. Passed as part of a package of bills designed to increase housing affordability, it will essentially extend the senior tax freeze to low-income homeowners of all ages.

Gauthier said her office held community meetings across the district alongside city agencies in 2022 to get the word out about tax relief programs. Her office is holding another such event Thursday with OPA and the Board of Revision of Taxes, which handles assessment appeals. The meeting will be at Salt and Light Church, 5736 Chestnut Ave., from 6 to 8 p.m.

Myriad factors, including the lingering effects of historical redlining, present stubborn challenges for addressing inequities in the city’s assessment system. And as neighborhoods gentrify, the property values increase. Assessments rise along with them, to reflect a home’s market value.

“If values in Black neighborhoods went up, that should actually be reflected in those assessments,” said Ira Goldstein, senior adviser for policy solutions at Reinvestment Fund.

Settles was raised in the home on South Divinity Street in Kingsessing that her sister, Sharon Settles, now owns. The sisters love their community and worry that gentrification is fueling tax increases.

In recent years, many homes in the neighborhood have been purchased by flippers and resold at higher prices, driving gentrification and the rising values that lead to tax hikes.

“They want these houses here and I truly believe that’s for gentrification,” Sharon Settles said. “Because they want to bring people in.”

“So once you’re out, you’re out,” said Sharon Settles, 65, who retired after a career at the Department of Defense.

West Philadelphia resident Joseph Moore said he also feels like the city is pushing him out of his neighborhood.

The value of the home Moore shares with his wife, daughter, and two granddaughters increased by about 40% in the latest property revaluation. And though Moore is enrolled in the longtime owner-occupants program, he could benefit more from the homestead exemption, under which he would pay zero property tax. (Homeowners can’t be enrolled in both relief program at once, making the process difficult to navigate for some.)

Moore, 60, is retired from a job at the University of Pennsylvania and currently works for SEPTA. He said he feels that elected officials don’t always look out for residents of color.

“I think overall it’s a part of our mayor working for big business as opposed to residents,” he said. “It’s part of … expelling middle-class Blacks from the city itself.”

City spokesperson Grace said the mayor is taking steps to ensure Philadelphians can stay in their homes.

“The goal … [is] to get as many Philadelphia homeowners as possible enrolled” in tax relief, he said.

For now, Moore said, he’s working to hold on to his home as an opportunity to build generational wealth.

“What can you do?” he said. “It’s either you pay them or lose your property.”