Homeowners don’t often beat the tax collector.
A Homewood woman won.

Tanya Todd twice considered giving up the North Homewood house that’s been in her family since before she was born.
When she and her neighbors endured sewer backups in 2017, rather than retreat to a high-rise, she said she “decided to stay and fight.”
“I’m really easy to get along with, but I’m like Popeye sometimes,” Todd said.
The sewer backups eventually led Todd to take on a rare challenge to the property tax assessment system.
In the end, with the help of a Homewood-focused community group, she was left with a clean basement and a reduced property tax bill.
This year, we’ve been writing about how most assessments have been frozen since 2012 when County Executive Rich Fitzgerald instituted a base-year property tax system. This story is part of our ongoing exploration of the effects of property taxes on people and communities a decade after Allegheny County’s last reassessment.