Property valuation; True cash value (TCV) & taxable value (TV); Highest & best use; Menard, Inc v City of Escanaba; Detroit Lions, Inc v Dearborn; Use of the sales-comparison approach; Required findings of financial feasibility & maximal productivity; Findings as to the probability of the property becoming vacant in the near future; The Tax Tribunal’s (TT) adjustment of raw data

The court held that the TT’s finding as to the highest and best use of the property at issue was supported by substantial evidence and that it did not err in relying on the sales-comparison approach. The court rejected petitioner-property owner’s claims that the TT’s analysis omitted “the required findings of financial feasibility and maximal productivity.” But it found that the TT “ failed to make adequate findings of fact on the record to explain how it adjusted the raw data to arrive at its conclusion regarding the property’s TCV.” The property “is a 27-hole public golf course.” Petitioner asserted “that its highest and best use is continued use as a golf course.” Petitioner presented testimony from an appraisal expert (R). Respondent-township’s assessor (H) determined that the property’s highest and best use “was as vacant land for residential development.” The TT rejected both parties’ conclusions “and came up with a middle position, that the property would be most profitably held ‘as vacant land but not necessarily for immediate residential development.’” It determined that H’s “valuation was too high because he made unrealistic assumptions regarding such planning, but [R’s] valuation also was unrealistic and inconsistent with present conditions in the township.” The court noted that the TT’s finding was consistent with R’s “expert opinion that the highest and best use of the property, considered as vacant, was to be held for future development.” It concluded that, on this record, the TT’s finding was “supported by substantial evidence.” Next, the court noted that while the TT “did not make an explicit statement regarding financial feasibility and maximal productivity, such findings are implicit from [its] conclusions that respondent failed to prove financial feasibility for residential development and that petitioner failed to prove that the golf course was the most profitable use.” But the TT did not make any findings of fact as “to how it adjusted the raw data to reach the TCV. Rather, it simply stated that it was ‘necessary to make these qualitative adjustments’ because respondent’s ‘adjustments were not supported by any objective, verifiable data and were largely simple estimates described.’ The [TT’s] failure to explain the reason why it chose a value of $2,000,000 from the raw data range” fell short of what is required by MCL 24.285. Thus, the court found that “remand for further factual findings related to the property’s TCV” was required. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.