Kendall County's chief appraiser has backed off of plans to yank the property tax exemption from a nonprofit that envisions one day building a massive cryonics facility in the Hill Country town of Comfort.
Keeping the exemption will allow The Stasis Foundation to save about $91,000 in property taxes on some buildings and 15 acres along Skyline Drive this year. The entire Stasis property is about 645 acres.
The Stasis Foundation's proposed cryonics fortress, called the “Timeship” by its creators, would store thousands of frozen bodies with the purpose of bringing them back to life if technology ever allows.
Stasis officials want the Timeship to be a “Fort Knox” for the cryopreservation of patients, organs, the DNA of endangered species, stem cells and tissue samples. The Timeship would protect “its precious cargo through hundreds of years of ‘travel into the future,'” project architect Stephen Valentine wrote in his 2009 book, “Timeship: The Architecture of Immortality.”
Construction of such a facility appears at least about a decade off, according to Stasis' 2009 tax return. The group is considered a public charity and, as such, is exempt from federal income tax.
Gary Eldridge, Kendall County's chief appraiser, had notified Stasis last June that he intended to remove its property tax exemption because of a lack of activity on the property at 46 Skyline Drive. Buildings on the property include an 18,000-square-foot antebellum-style mansion built in the early 1980s.
But after two tours of the property, first in August and then in October, Eldridge concluded the activity he witnessed — primarily “administrative” work — was enough to let Stasis keep its property tax exemption for now.
“Bottom line of it is, they are minimally meeting the criteria that is required” in the state's tax code, Eldridge said.
Lawyer Joseph M. Harrison IV, who represents Stasis, said in an email that organization officials were focused on its charitable projects and therefore were not giving interviews or public tours of the property.
Harrison, however, provided a four-page letter he wrote to Eldridge outlining the research and educational activities that occurred at the property from June 2010 to June 2011.
According to Harrison's letter, Stasis' scientific and biomedical research at the Skyline property has included design and development work related to something called the TCV. That is an acronym for “temperature controlled volumes.” Until the Timeship is built, Valentine wrote in his book, interim cryostorage of organs and patients will take place in TCVs. He describes them as containers with Timeship features.
Research also was on done on the mechanics and engineering related to the fabrication of the TCV containers, according to Harrison's letter.
A research project that was slated to start last September would “survey the existing physiological, biochemical, and cellular mechanisms of cryopreservation of gametes (cells that fuse during fertilization) and embryos, issues directly relevant to assisted reproduction and treatment of infertility,” the letter explained.
Stasis' educational endeavors will include hosting a series of public seminars for local residents on “the benefits of organ donation,” Harrison wrote. In fact, one was scheduled for Thursday evening.
Stasis also has been setting up a bioscience research library that would be open to the public. Work on it was delayed because of a burst water pipe in 2009 that caused extensive damage to the mansion.
The organization also had completed the first phase of a “Virtual Reality 3D-Model” that would allow the public to study via the Internet the “various types of research slated for Skyline.”
Here is the original post:
Cryonics facility keeps tax break
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
