impact fees

There's been a marked uptick in NC Realtor and Homebuilder attempts to derail the local transfer tax option as they make a final attempt to secure the low ground. Attacking Chris Fitzsimon in radio ads yesterday, a new round of melodramatic TV ads and a full page ad in today's paper attacking everybody who is not feeding at the bottom with them.

Read more below the fold....

Folks, the fight for local option funding sources has started to get hot. I'm on the WakeUP Wake County newsletter, and they're buzzing about Janet Cowell's proposal to let Wake County impliment a transfer tax.

As I mentioned in my kick-off post, we've got a lot better shot at this if every county doesn't try to bull rush the door and get their own bill. Currently, Orange and Chatham counties can charge school impact fees, and no one else, despite decades of trying by other counties. As such, I'm opposed to Janet Cowell's bill, just because it's a one-county deal. Let's settle this once and for all, for the whole state.

There are a number of bills in the general assembly about this right now. I'm saying, let's take a look at them here, find one (or more) to back, and give it a push from behind.

Yesterday’s Pilot reports Moore, Chatham, and Orange Counties are joining together to request new local taxing options as alternative sources of revenue to existing sales and property taxes. It is hoped that three counties working together and which happen to be represented at least partially by the Speaker will be more effective in bringing fairness and consistency to taxing authority for all 100 NC counties.

An important element of these resolutions is that the counties are asking to have these options so they can put them up for referendum. This is an important distinction, because if the legislature is to deny these options, they are saying they know better than the voters do about how the people would choose to be taxed. Of course, would also be saying, in not so many words, they desperately need the money that flows from the homebuilder and real estate lobbies. If we're talking about referendums, there should be no need for the Legislature to act to “protect” people from their county governments.

I know I've been AWOL for a while on this issue. (Too many things going on, as usual.) But we have yet another county that's starting to take a look at impact fees as a way of covering the spiraling costs of keeping educational construction up to speed with growth. This time, it's Granville county, which sits just north of Durham and Wake counties, home to Creedmoor, Butner, and Oxford, among other small communities. Sprawl, coming largely out of Durham County but also to a degree out of Wake, is putting pressure on their school system, and they're trying to find a way to pay for it.

Folks, I need help on this. I'm not terribly good at organizing -- I've tried, and haven't gotten anywhere. But the problem is that the NC Homebuilders will fight this to their dying breath, and that's more power than any one county has. (Orange and Chatham slipped through school construction impact fees in the '80s, before the Homebuilders had a chance to organize against them.) Or, if one county does muster the power, they might slip that one through, then draw a firewall on the rest. Durham County's legislative delegation tried for 12 years to get permission from the legislature to charge school construction impact fees, and were blocked by the Homebuilders every time. The ONLY way this happens is if there's enough local government and activist pressure on enough legislators that eventually there's too many for the homebuilders to stop.

Today's N&O reports Chatham County is trying to get authorization to add a land transfer tax to help pay for growth. Most growing counties in the state are wanting some kind of impact/transfer tax/fee to help handle the costs associated with growth.

What I find interesting, but no longer surprising, is how the realtors and homebuilders are always right on top of things talking about how much these new fees and taxes will hurt "working families," etc.

Imposing taxes on new and existing homes will hurt working families by making homes less affordable," said Tim Kent, executive vice president of the Realtors Association.

How come we don't hear cries about this from groups who actually care about affordable housing. Nobody from Habitat ever speaks up. Nobody from the other groups speaks up. I guess they sit back and let the homebuilders and realtors go on with their own tireless fight for the working class. After all builders and realtors always voluntary include affordable housing in their big new subdivisions, don't they? If cities didn't have affordable housing mandates in place, the developers would still build a certain proportion of affordable housing out of the goodness of their hearts, right?

Thanks to everyone for the great response to my first post about a statewide alliance to support local control over impact fees.

What I'm interested in now is knowing what parts of the state have the capacity to get behind it. I know what the story in Durham and Wake is like, but I don't know what it feels like on the ground in Mecklenburg, Buncombe, New Hanover, Guilford, Forsyth, Johnston, Alamance, Davidson, or any other county that's seeing fast growth. If this is going to work, we're going to have to put together a coordinated effort to bug legislators in a lot of different parts of the state.

So, here's my question: How much are your Commissioners amenable to impact fees? How about your legislative delegation? Are there existing environmental, smart growth, or other progressive groups which would be willing to lend their support in the form of coordinated letter writing or calling campaigns?

Quick introduction here -- I just created my account, but I've been lurking for a while. While this is the first time I've posted to BlueNC, I'm "Michael Bacon" at TPMCafe and nclefty at Daily Kos. (I created that username years ago, shortly after 2004, when I felt like I needed to defiantly state that I was a liberal living in North Carolina. Man, how times have changed... for the better!)

I'm here now because I'm trying to actually move on something I've been wanting to do for quite a while now. I don't think impact fees are a foreign subject around here, from what I've seen, but right now the topic of how to pay for schools, in the wake of the Wake County bond referendum, seems to have some life.

Having watched up-close the court battle in Durham to charge impact fees without explicit legislative approval, I think the only way to get alternate sources of funding like this is if activists from the impacted municipalities team up and get on the same page. If only one city pushes it, they'll get snowed, just like Durham. If only the legislators push it, it'll die of a whisper campaign by the homebuilders. The only way it will happen is if the activists, who in each district can get the ear of their legislator, work together and move the ball forward. That's the only way we can match the extensive influence of the homebuilders. And I think BlueNC and other communities like it are just the way to do it.