By JIMMY LAWTON

OGDENSBURG -- At least 40 people have successfully negotiated reduced assessments with Ogdensburg’s and many more met with the grievance board last week with hopes of doing the same.

While the new figures aren’t yet available, many Ogdensburg residents in the Proctor Avenue neighborhood were outraged by assessor Bruce Green’s proposed 2017 roll that raised assessments of less than 160 properties by more than $2.5 million.

Several residents attend an early June city council meeting to call the city to lessen the blow by doling out the in the increases over a few years, but City Attorney Andrew Silver said no precedent seemed to exist for such a practice.

At the June 28 meeting two residents raised questions about assessments, but the city took no action as the council believed there was little they could do.

City Councilor Jennifer Stevenson said the grievance board met Monday evening to deliberate on challenges made by citizens regarding their assessments.

Among claims made by residents over the past few weeks was that many houses in the area saw no increases, some saw modest increases and others saw increases as high as 63 percent.

Meanwhile assessments on riverfront properties in the same neighborhood were not reassessed. Several residents accused the city of trying to balance its budget on the backs of a select number of property owners.

It is unclear at this time how much the assessments on the Proctor Avenue neighborhood will increase in the final roll.

In May, Green said the assessments on the non-waterfront properties in the Proctor Avenue neighborhood were assessed far below recent selling prices. He said that 24 sales occurred in the neighborhood over the last three years.

On average Green said assessments in the area rose 17.5 percent. But noted some properties would see increases of 50 to 70 percent.

Green said about 30 parcels saw no change or went down. Those hit the hardest saw assessments rising by more than $50,000.

Most houses in the area are now in the $120,000 to $180,000 range these days, according to Green.