There's a solar canopy over the commuter parking lot at Croton-Harmon station. The array is about 4.2 megawatts, and it's paired with a 15-megawatt-hour battery. Altus Power owns and operates the system, and the Village of Croton-on-Hudson collects lease revenue from it. Underneath it, commuters pay the Village to park, either by the day or with a quarterly permit.

So the lot gets paid twice, once for its roof and once for its parking spaces. That matters because of what the Village announced on October 5, 2026: according to New York State Comptroller data, Croton had the lowest property tax levy growth of any reporting Westchester village from 2016 through 2025. If you're comparing Rivertowns villages, here's the useful takeaway. A village's tax growth depends on how much of its budget property taxes have to cover, and the Croton-Harmon lot covers a share that taxpayers would otherwise carry.

What the Comptroller actually measured

This finding is about the levy: the total dollar amount the Village raises from property taxes each year. It isn't the tax rate, and it isn't any one homeowner's bill. The Village's announcement says the comparison covered 20 villages, leaving out coterminous town-villages. Most of them saw their levies rise 30% or more over the ten years. Croton averaged 1.78% a year.

The Comptroller's own calendar-year local government data shows the dollar amounts. Croton's levy was $11,244,256 in 2016 and $13,245,927 in 2025. That's an increase of $2,001,671, or about 17.8% over the decade. Here's how that compares with nearby villages buyers often weigh against Croton. The percentages are calculated from the Comptroller's 2016 and 2025 levy figures.

Croton and Briarcliff Manor started the decade with almost the same levy, within about $600,000 of each other. By 2025, Briarcliff's was roughly $2.1 million higher. Of course, each village has its own budget pressures and its own services to pay for, so a single table can't explain why. What the table does show is that Croton's levy has had to cover less of the rising cost of running the village than most of its neighbors' have.

The lot that pays rent twice

The Village credits four factors for its slow levy growth. One is new revenue sources, and the example it gives is the carport solar array at Croton-Harmon, which "pays the Village $473,922 annually." Compared with the 2025 levy, that one lease equals about 3.6% of what Croton raised from property taxes that year. That's the lease's size relative to the levy. The Village hasn't calculated how much it lowered the levy.

This took years to set up. The Village picked Sol Systems through a 2020 request for proposals and approved a lease in 2021. The project was substantially complete by the end of 2024, and Altus Power bought it from Arevon in April 2026. In practice, a parking lot that already existed now brings in rent from the space above the cars.

The parking side is bigger. In the Village's FY2025 budget report, parking sat right in the general fund: $1.25 million budgeted for permits and $1.412 million for daily parking. Westchester County sales tax was budgeted at $2.025 million and solar rent at $268,870. The more recent numbers ran ahead of plan. The Parking Department's quarterly report for March 1 to May 31, 2026 shows:

• Daily parking: 45,627 transactions in the quarter, bringing in $474,764.30. Daily revenue for the full fiscal year finished at 113% of budget, and the report said train travel "continues to grow."
• Quarterly permits: 64 preferred, 390 resident and 843 non-resident permits sold, for $381,652 in the quarter. Permit revenue for the year finished at 112.6% of budget.

Look at who bought the permits. Of the 1,297 sold that quarter, 843 went to non-residents, about 65% of the total. Non-residents also paid more each. Under the 2025–26 fee schedule, a quarterly permit was $219 for residents, $321 for non-residents and $471 for preferred spaces. The Village didn't list parking as one of its four factors, so it would be overstating things to say parking held the levy down. But commuter parking is a general-fund revenue line, it beat its budget in FY2026, and most permit holders don't pay the Village's property tax. When those dollars go toward general-fund costs, the levy doesn't have to cover that share.

The fee schedule updated July 7, 2026 raised prices again. Quarterly permits are now $222 for residents, $324 for non-residents and still $471 for preferred spaces. The weekday daily maximum is $15, and the weekend maximum is $9. The earlier schedule listed a $12 weekday maximum.

The other three reasons build on the same idea

The Village's other explanations work the same way. Each one is money the levy didn't have to raise:

1. Less debt. Lower outstanding debt and smaller bond payments mean less of each budget goes to paying for past projects.
2. More than $6.4 million in grants and state funding. That's outside money paying for work local taxpayers would otherwise fund.
3. The Katz Property sale. The Village sold this former Village-owned land on Maple Street to Regan Development, which is building Maple Commons, an affordable housing development. The $2 million from the sale went into the Village's capital plan.

Mayor Brian Pugh put it this way in the announcement:

"Since I've joined the Board of Trustees, we've stayed below the property tax cap every year despite the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and historically high inflation."

That held for the current year too. The FY2026–27 budget covers June 1, 2026 through May 31, 2027, and it was adopted April 22, 2026. The mayor's adoption message says it passed unanimously and came in $100,378 below the state tax cap, with no rate increases for the Water and Sewer funds. The Croton-Harmon Station Solar Project shows up on both sides of this. It's an asset that brings in recurring income, and it's tied to the commuter traffic that makes the lot valuable to begin with.

What a 17.8% levy doesn't tell a buyer

A slow-growing village levy is real, but it's narrow. Here's how far it reaches on an actual tax bill.

It's one line on a bill with several. A Croton homeowner also pays school taxes, plus town and county taxes, and each is set by a different body with its own budget. The Comptroller ranking covers only the village portion.

Levy growth isn't the same as your bill growth. The levy is a total that gets spread across the village's assessed property. Croton's assessed value in the Comptroller's 2025 data was $1,760,054,144. How one property's share changes depends on its assessment as well as the levy.

The current-year levy isn't public in what we reviewed. We found the cap margin for FY2026–27, but not the adopted levy, tax rate or percentage change. The ranking covers 2016 through 2025.

Some of the revenue depends on the train. Daily parking income follows ridership, and the Parking Department connected its strong FY2026 results to growing train travel. The solar lease has a fixed annual payment, which is a different kind of income.

When you compare villages, look past the levy and ask what's paying for village services besides property owners. In Croton, the answer includes a 2020 solar procurement, a land sale on Maple Street, grant applications, and a commuter lot where about two of every three permits go to people who live outside the village.

FAQ

Did Croton's village tax go down? No. The Comptroller data shows Croton's levy rose from $11,244,256 in 2016 to $13,245,927 in 2025. It grew more slowly than any other reporting Westchester village's levy.

Does the solar canopy lower my individual tax bill? The Village lists solar revenue as one reason its levy grew slowly, and it puts the payment at $473,922 a year. It hasn't published how much that changes any one property's bill, and the village portion is only one part of the total.

Where can I check the numbers myself? The Comptroller publishes village levies in its local government data files. River Journal's coverage has the Village's statement and quotes from Mayor Pugh and The Business Council of Westchester.

If you're comparing Croton with Ossining, Briarcliff Manor or Tarrytown and want to talk through how each village pays for itself before you make an offer, Nicole Biello can walk you through it, from the Croton-Harmon permit math to the questions to ask about any home's full tax bill. Book a free strategy call.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.