Ted Gwartney

Overview

Ted Gwartney, MAI, is a career real-estate assessor whose decades of practical mass-appraisal work are cited in the Georgist movement as evidence that unimproved land value can be routinely separated from building value at scale. In 1976 he became CEO / Assessment Commissioner of the British Columbia Assessment Authority, where his office implemented an annual province-wide revaluation of 1,500,000 land parcels using a computerized land-valuation system with multiple-regression analysis of sales data.[1] (A prior version of this page carried "1975" and "1,350,000 parcels," attributed to a 2002 edition of the source distinct from a 2000 edition. Both cooperative-individualism.org URLs were directly fetched and read in full this session — a successful direct fetch, unlike the earlier pass, which could only reach this source via a search-engine summary after a direct-fetch HTTP 403 — and both now serve byte-identical text stating 1976 and 1,500,000 parcels; no "1975 / 1,350,000" wording appears in either. The discrepancy is resolved in favor of the figures both editions currently agree on.[1][3]) Earlier in his career he was Deputy County Assessor of Sacramento, California, before becoming City Assessor of Southfield, Michigan and of Hartford, Connecticut.[3] He also worked as an assessor in Bridgeport and Greenwich, Connecticut (retiring as Greenwich's assessor in 2012), and as a commercial appraiser at Bank of America and City National Bank.[1] Outside North America, he made nineteen consulting trips to Russia over roughly a decade to advise on land valuation, and served as a director of the Land & Public Welfare Foundation in St. Petersburg.[3] He has served as president of the Council of Georgist Organizations; was Executive Director of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation until November 2000 (not, as an earlier version of this page stated, its president); and was past president of both the national board and the Los Angeles chapter of Common Ground USA. He has also taught real-estate appraisal at Baruch College.[1][3] His essay "Estimating Land Values" is a widely cited practitioner's account of how land value assessment is actually done, and is the text Lars Doucet drew on for the assessment installment of his Does Georgism Work? series.[2]

See Also

• Land Cannot Be Assessed (objection) — the objection Gwartney's career is cited as practical counter-evidence against
• Mass-Appraisal Methods — the statistical toolkit (CAMA, regression) his BC system industrialized
• Estimating Land Values (Gwartney) — his own essay, this wiki's research summary
• Lars Doucet — consulted Gwartney directly for the ACX assessment article
• Schalkenbach Foundation — the Georgist foundation he served as Executive Director of, until November 2000
• Common Ground USA — the Georgist organization whose national board and Los Angeles chapter he served as president of

Sources

1. "Ted Gwartney / Biography," cooperative-individualism.org (2000, updated 2002) — used for the British Columbia Assessment Authority role and parcel count, Connecticut/Michigan assessor positions, and Council of Georgist Organizations / Robert Schalkenbach Foundation presidencies. Directly fetched and read in full 2026-08-10 (superseding the earlier pass, whose direct fetch returned HTTP 403 and relied on a search-indexed summary): the page states "In 1976 he became the Assessment Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the British Columbia Assessment Authority and implemented an annual Province-wide revaluation of the 1,500,000 land parcels" — 1976 and 1,500,000, not the 1975/1,350,000 figures an earlier pass had attributed to this URL from its search-indexed summary. cooperative-individualism.org
2. Ted Gwartney, "Estimating Land Values" (c. 1999) and Lars Doucet, "Does Georgism Work? Part 3," Astral Codex Ten (December 2021) — this wiki's discovery source and research summary for Gwartney as the practitioner Doucet consulted. Research page · henrygeorge.org Gwartney's exact birth year and current status could not be confirmed to wiki standards in this research pass — a people-search aggregator gave one unverified date (June 30, 1940) that is not included here. Direct-fetch confirmation of the full biography page is needed in a future revision.
3. "Ted Gwartney / Biography," cooperative-individualism.org (2000 edition, directly fetched and read this pass). cooperative-individualism.org — an earlier edition of source 1, from the same author/publisher. Used for the Sacramento (Deputy County Assessor), Southfield, and Hartford positions; the Common Ground USA national-board and Los Angeles-chapter presidencies; the Russia consulting trips (nineteen over roughly a decade) and the directorship of the Land & Public Welfare Foundation in St. Petersburg; and the correction that Gwartney's Robert Schalkenbach Foundation role was Executive Director ("Currently, he is Executive Director of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation," updated in the 2002 edition to "Until November 2000, he was the Executive Director...") rather than president, as an earlier version of this wiki page stated. This 2000 edition gives the same 1976 start year and 1,500,000-parcel caseload for the BC Assessment Authority role as source 1 above — as of this session's fetch, both URLs serve byte-identical page content, so the two editions no longer disagree (if they ever did; the earlier "1975/1,350,000" reading was never independently confirmed against either page's actual text).