Standing on the second level of the cabin that has been in her family for more than 50 years, Mary Ellen Pugsley says she can sneeze and feel the walls rattle.
Built in the 1920s, later taken apart board by board and reassembled in Big Cottonwood Canyon, the cabin is the family's favorite recreational getaway each summer.
But Pugsley says an unfair system of taxing secondary homes and overvaluing them may soon mean middle-income families will be forced to sell.
"Your income doesn't necessarily appreciate at the rate your property appreciates," she said. " If they keep the tax system the way it is, the middle-income property owner in Utah's mountains will be a thing of the past and, truly, it will be only the wealthy Utahns or out-of-state or international people who will be able to afford it."
Last year, Pugsley's cabin had an assessed value of $106,500 and her taxes were $1,570. This year, the taxes nearly doubled, coming in at $2,552 because her cabin is now valued at $164,600, a 55 percent increase.
Salt Lake County Assessor Lee Gardner concedes the values on canyon property have gone up in the latest rounds of assessment but says they are not out of sync with the market.
"Value is often a question of supply and demand. People, not only within our county but nationally and internationally, recognize what we have in our canyons. When people see things of value, they are willing to spend the money."
Pugsley, who lives in Salt Lake City, says the valuations on canyon properties are unrealistic and illogical.
"They are all over the board. To a certain degree, the increases are understandable and legitimate because some of the homes are selling for more, but there is no defensible pattern here with most of these properties."
Pugsley, as president of the Big Cottonwood Canyon Association, is urging property owners to protest the valuations by showing up en masse at the 4 p.m. Tuesday Salt Lake County Council meeting.
"We're going to ask the council to get the assessor's office to be more cooperative with us and provide us with some information so we can understand why these valuations went they way they went. They don't make sense to us — what are the factors that made some properties go up 60 percent and others go down 9 percent?"
Jim Dagliesh, for example, had his cabin valued at $87,200 last year and saw it jump to $114,200 this year.
"There have been no improvements made to it at all."
James Crookston lives year-round in a cabin near the ski resort. He watched the value of his home jump from $158,300 last year to $242,000 this year.
"That is a shock," he said. "The home is valued five times more than what it cost to build it." The home is 16 years old.
Because canyon property changes ownership so infrequently, Gardner said his staff used four years' worth of home sales in the canyons to arrive at the recently assessed values. The traditional time period is only 18 months.
"Now that we have multiple years' worth of sales, the trend is very clear: The evidence clearly shows the value of canyon properties has been increasing steadily at rates significantly higher than properties generally within the county."
It is a difficult area to assess, he admits, because of the disparity of canyon property.
"There is a combination of vacant lots, lots with or without water, small cabins and very palatial cabins."
Pugsley contends her cabin is worth far less than the assessor's figure.
"This is not some palace on a hill," she said.
There is no insulation, and it has exposed wiring, an outhouse and only partitioned bedrooms upstairs, she said.
"If I were to sell my property to someone not sentimentally attached to the cabin, the first thing they would do is tear it down. "
Beyond her contention that the canyon property is inaccurately overvalued, Pugsley says current taxation laws are unfair, especially to Salt Lake County residents who own secondary homes and pay taxes on 100 percent of their assessed value.
A resident's primary home is taxed at 45 percent of its value, a mechanism put in place by the Legislature to encourage homeownership. It is the only type of personal property to receive that exemption, with the reasoning put forward that homeowners benefit society as a whole and therefore justify special treatment.
Pugsley says a similar exemption should be extended to people with secondary residences because it it is becoming too tough to afford the taxes.
Salt Lake County is particularly unique, she says, because secondary homes represent such a small portion of overall taxable property.
Unlike Rich County, where there are two summer cabins to one primary residence, Salt Lake County has only 1,100 properties that qualify as secondary homes.
In Summit County, where there are a substantial number of summer homes, the assessor has no sympathy for Pugsley.
"The intent of the exemption was to help people own a home, not a second home, not a cabin, not a townhouse or a condo," Barbara Kresser said. " Because people are fortunate enough to own a second home doesn't mean they have the right to cause a tax shift to those of us who only own a primary home."
Any time legislation has been crafted to attempt to give secondary property owners a tax break, the Utah Association of Counties lobbies against it.
"It may be tough for her to afford it, but it is still an asset worth thousands and thousands of dollars," said association president Brent Gardner.
"There are many people who can barely afford the taxes on their first home."
E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com