Property values across King County are on the rise, and Assessor Lloyd Hara is once again calming concerns those increases will match Eastside residents’ tax bills.

The county assessor will hold a town hall meeting 6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 8 at Bellevue City Hall to discuss with residents the formula for determining these latest property valuations, senior and disabled exemptions, online services and the appeals process.

While many Bellevue neighborhoods saw substantial increases to their property values – Bel-Red up 11.3 percent and Lake Hills/Crossroads up 24.2 percent – Hara said a 1-percent cap on what the county can collect in tax revenue prevents levy rates from spiking, even when property values are determined to be substantially higher than the same time last year. There are 590 different levy rates and codes in King County.

“There’s no close correlation between what their values have increased to and the amount of taxes they will pay,” he said, noting some of the shock stems from spending so much time recovering from the recession. “We’ve had so many years of down values, values decreasing, and now we’re starting to see the recovery. We’re back to bidding wars again. You didn’t see that a few years ago.”

Barring special levies from school and utilities districts, Hara said the increased property values, when raising tax revenue 1 percent, should mean a decrease in levy rates across the county. Levy rates won’t be finalized until mid-late December for the 2015 property tax.

New construction, which is nearly synonymous with Bellevue at the moment and is not limited by the 1-percent cap, also can lower the levy rate, Hara said. New construction means jobs, he said, and higher employment rates also factor into increased property values.

Once every six years a King County appraiser will do a full assessment of a property, but for those other five years homeowners are seeing valuations from mass appraisals that do account for property sales in their neighborhood. Hara said his office uses an algorithm to minimize the impact of bidding wars that cause home prices to soar.

“It’s kind of a blended average, the way it works,” Hara said.

Bellevue residents received their valuations by mail in August, and have 60 days from the postmarked date to appeal. Members of the King County Board of Equalization will also be at the Oct. 8 meeting to explain that process. Hara said there were less than 5,000 appeals in the county last year.