Aрpeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Williams, J.H.O.), entered June 17, 1998 in Greene County, which dismissed petitioner’s applications, in five proceedings pursuant to RPTL article 7, to reduce the real property tax assessments on certain parcels owned by petitioner.
Petitioner commenced five tax certiorari proceedings, subsequently consolidated for trial, challenging the assessments on its Cementon and Alsen plants in the Town of Catskill, Greene County, for the tax years 1992-1993 through 1996-1997. At the close of evidence, Supreme Court granted respondents’ motion to strike petitioner’s expert appraisal reports and dismissed the petitions, as petitioner had not met its burden of establishing that the assessments were erroneous. Petitioner appeals.
The properties in question аre improved as cement production and importation facilities. Petitioner purchased the Cementon plant in 1982 for approximately $11,634,000, of which $6,832,000 was allocated to plant and equipment. It thereafter invested approximately $40,000,000 in the facility, where cement was produced until 1994, when petitioner сhose to cease production and focus solely on its import terminal operations. The Alsen facility, constructed in the 1920s, had been inactive
Central to petitioner’s challenge to these assessments was its contention that because nеither facility was being used for cement production, those structures specifically related to the production function had no value. Petitioner sought to validate this contention by utilizing the reproduction cost new less depreciation (hereinafter RCNLD) method of valuation. Under this method, the land value comрonent is established separately, usually with reference to comparable sales of like property; here, the parties stipulated to vaсant land values. The present-day cost of reproducing the property’s improvements is' separately calculated, from which is subtracted the pеrcentage of physical depreciation or functional obsolescence attributable to the existing structures as of the valuation date. The RCNLD vаlue is the sum of the land value and depreciated value of the improvements (see, Matter of City of Troy v Kusala,
Critical to petitioner’s application of the RCNLD method was its use of a business enterprise valuation method to determine the appropriate depreciation сomponent of the RCNLD equation. Essentially, petitioner’s appraisers concluded that those structures and improvements which were specifically usеd for cement production were functionally obsolete and hence had no value because, in the context of a business enterprise valuatiоn, they could not be used to profitably produce cement. Supreme Court rejected petitioner’s appraisals principally because they were premised upon use of the business enterprise valuation, which the court found to be an improper vehicle for establishing market value. The court also found, however, that the appraisals’ purported inclusion of the RCNLD methodology was “patently incomplete” and was tainted by numerous, substantial еrrors and omissions in calculating the reproduction cost in the RCNLD formula.
The determinative question presented is whether Supreme Court properly rejeсted petitioner’s expert appraisal reports and their underlying methodology. Petitioner argues that the court’s wholesale rejection of its aрpraisals was error because the business enterprise valuation method was not utilized at all with respect to the Alsen plant or the Cementon plant for the tax years 1995-1997, and was properly used to determine
Significantly, petitioner on this appeal challenges only Supreme Court’s rejection of its use of the business enterprise valuation methоd; it does not address the court’s finding of numerous errors and omissions fatal to its purported use of the RCNLD method. Since a party’s failure to raise an issue in its appellate brief is tantamount to abandonment or waiver of the issue (see, Gibeault v. Home Ins. Co.,
We do not reach petitioner’s arguments in support of its use of the business enterprise valuation to calculate depreciation because, although not raised by the parties, we conclude that petitioner’s use of the RCNLD method was inappropriate here. It is well settled that “reproduction cost should be utilized only in those limited instances in which no other method of valuation will yield a legally and economically realistic valuе for the property” (Matter of Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co. v Kiernan,
Given the availability of data to support a market valuation approach, reсognized as the most reliable method of ascertaining value for assessment purposes, petitioner’s purported use of the RCNLD method is “at best, suspect” (Matter of Blue Circle v Schermerhorn, supra, at 773). We are not persuaded by the opinions of the parties’ experts that the market value approach has been eschewed in favor of the RCNLD method due to the uniqueness of improvements or the difficulties of adjusting sales prices of ongoing businesses to attain a real property valuation. Not only has the market value approach been used and recommended for cement plant assessment purposes (see, id., at 773), the Court of Appeals has recently reaffirmed the principle that “ ‘[d] espite the difficulties of computing the market value of large industrial complexes, the market value mеthod of valuation is preferred as the most reliable measure of a property’s full value for assessment purposes’ ” (Matter of FMC Corp. [Peroxygen Chems. Div.] v Unmack, supra, at 189, quoting Matter of General Elec. Co. v Town of Salina,
Cardona, P. J., Crew III, Yesawich Jr. and Graffeo, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.