CLEVELAND — When everybody else in Rowan County’s property tax base increased after the latest reevaluation, Cleveland’s appeared to stay about the same.

The previous assessed value for all Cleveland property was $214,300,223. The total property value was determined to be $228,747,719 after the reassessment.

It seems that Cleveland, unlike the rest of Rowan County, did not see much valuation growth since the previous reassessment. Those figures can be misleading, though, as Rowan County assessor Chip Main explained.

“The residential properties around Cleveland and within the town increased similarly to the rest of the county,” Main said. “What you are seeing (is that) such a large portion of the tax base of Cleveland comes from Daimler, the truck manufacturing plant.”

Main said that the spike in valuations that have been a trend in Rowan County and other parts of the country has more significantly impacted residential properties than commercial ones.

“The economy over the last four years has been affected in the residential and vacant land area because of people buying and selling houses,” Main said. “In the last couple of years, the amount of buying and selling of residential properties has been very unusual.

“Rowan County has been fortunate to experience a lot of that here. The demand for housing has been high. We did not experience the same type of issues with commercial and industrial properties.”

With Daimler representing more than 60 percent of the Cleveland tax base, a slower growth rate for industrial property would impact the evaluations.

“A large industrial property like that does not increase at nearly the same rate that residential properties did, and (Cleveland’s) residential portion does not represent as much of a tax base,” Main said.

Cleveland is uniquely structured compared to other municipalities in Rowan County.

“There is no other town that has anywhere close to the same situation as Cleveland is experiencing,” Main said. “All the other towns have a mixture of residential, commercial and small industrial, with the exception of Salisbury, which has a little bit of everything.”

Within Cleveland, there are only a few hundred homes. Unless officials elect to expand the town limits, there is little room for more development.

However, those homes inside Cleveland town limits did see a jump in value, which was not out of sync with other Rowan County municipalities.

“The increases on the residential property within the town were in the 30-55 percent price range, just like the rest of the county,” Main said.

According to Cleveland Finance Officer Rebekah Brown, the median home value inside the town limits jumped significantly from $123,238 to $195,610. With so few homes in Cleveland and Daimler representing such a large portion of the town’s base, that jump did not reflect a significant shift in the tax rate.

So what does all this mean for growth?

Growth in Cleveland is limited for other reasons.

“It’s more of a space availability inside the town limits,” Mayor Pat Phifer said. “Outside the city limits, we are growing.”

With a major east-west corridor in Hwy. 70, Phifer sees Cleveland as in a good position for more industry.

“Everything going from 77-85 goes through 70,” Phifer said. “The land we have available in the city limits, that is able to be annexed or people asking to be annexed, we are very particular about what we do because people scream house, but they don’t bring enough revenue as industry. That is why industrial action is more important to us.”

With residential development, Phifer said that it’s difficult at current home valuations to make up the costs to the city when a new house comes in. While the fire department that services that area is volunteer, police and public works departments comprise a large portion of the town’s budget, and the cost to the city exceeds expected revenues from residential property taxes.

In some cases, that discrepancy totals more than $1,000.

“For every house we pick up, we have to provide those services,” Phifer said. “If a place adds 200 homes, how much does it really add? From us, it would take $200,000 out of our budget.”

According to Phifer, density is not the answer either.

“Everybody wants us to put houses on an eighth of an acre,” Phifer said. “Even if we put it on an eighth of an acre, we wouldn’t make it back.”

As a municipality, Cleveland skews much younger than the rest of the county.

Cleveland’s median age is 33.4 years, compared to the Rowan County median age, 40.3 years, and the North Carolina median age, 38.6 years.

“It’s a much younger community, which is a positive thing,” said Vagn Hansen, an urban planning consultant assisting Cleveland with a future land use plan, during a May meeting.

Since 2010, Cleveland has lost three residents, compared to the growth of about 65 between 2000-2010.

“Despite the decline in population, the age distribution skews younger,” Hansen said.

Typically, with a declining population, Hansen said that you would see a concentration of middle-aged individuals, yet that’s not happening in Cleveland.

“What you are seeing is kids being born,” Hansen said.

Only time will tell what is in store for Cleveland, but officials remain determined to preserve the small-town charm that has come to define it.