This morning, I read an interesting article about the desire for home ownership and its benefits to both individuals (financial stability, higher net worth, and long-term wealth) and the community (tax base).
According to the article, 88% of consumers would rather own than rent. But, according to a recent survey by Lendingtree, 55% of Gen X renters and 52% of Millennial renters are worried they'll never get there.
The article cites rising home prices as the reason. But, it's reasonable to deduce that higher rents also don't help. It's harder to save when you're dedicating a chunk of your monthly budget to rent.
It probably also doesn't help when municipalities encourage rental developments (expensive ones at that) instead of affordable, fee-simple housing.
So, why are the municipalities doing that?
It's simple. The benefits home ownership provides to individuals are not on their radar. Individuals are not on their radar. They are more interested in their tax base.
The fact is, every structure, even the ones that consist of rental units, is owned by someone, and someone pays property taxes on it. The City can make more tax revenue off of, say, 7.49 acres with an apartment complex on it than they probably could with 7.49 acres with single-family homes.
For example, check out this year's tax assessment for The Local (formerly Broadstone) on 7.49 acres across from City Hall. Sugar Hill will get $102,234.14 in tax revenue from that.
The people who celebrate big government will see that as an achievement. It's not. They claim that this extra revenue is benefitting residents by keeping taxes lower. They always overlook the fact that reduced spending also keeps taxes lower, short term and long term.
Local governments in Georgia are required by state law to have a balanced budget. Obviously, they either have to increase revenue, decrease spending, or do a little of both to achieve that balance.
While that's very obvious to you and me, government ALWAYS sees an increase in revenue as THE way to try to keep its financial house in order. It's easier and more fun for them. Government employees NEED that revenue increase to keep their own jobs fruitful and rewarding.
Government generally only considers a spending reduction as a last resort. No one wants to give up taxpayer-funded perks or get a smaller raise than last year. And in government circles, spending more on bigger things is a point of pride, not saving taxpayers' money. So, these large-scale developments are the perfect solution from their perspective.
The City of Sugar Hill has no end in sight for its spending plans. Even the projects funded largely by SPLOST, such as the Sugar Hill Greenway, often incur other, less obvious costs to the Sugar Hill general fund. For instance, the staff hours to work on this came from Sugar Hill taxpayers, not SPLOST. Furthermore, SPLOST only pays for the initial project, not the lifetime of ongoing maintenance.
Now, we've got plans for more gateway signage, which is expensive and provides no hard benefit to residents or most businesses in Sugar Hill. We've got a pedestrian bridge (to be paid for with anticipated SPLOST income, money from the federal infrastructure bill, and Sugar Hill taxpayers) that will become a permanent part of our infrastructure, requiring cleaning, maintenance, and security. We've got a "Department of Public Safety" that I can almost guarantee you will expand rapidly after this year, although no one has publicly discussed it yet.
And those are just the larger projects that I can think of right off hand. Every meeting I go to in Sugar Hill is kind of like watching a cash register at the grocery store.
A very expensive cash register.
Since I've been serving as a government watchdog in Sugar Hill, I've heard a lot of commentary from the public about the dense growth that is now ramping up considerably in Sugar Hill. A lot of the people I talk to are against it. A decently sized group of Sugar Hill voters also seem to be against it. It appears to be fairly hot topic in Suwanee and Flowery Branch. I've seen signs from concerned indivudals and community groups protesting apartments and condos in various other communities, as well.
I hear MANY complaints about government spending in general, but a lot of those comments seem to be directed at federal and state government. I hear some complaints about taxes and spending in Sugar Hill. However, I hear a decent number who actually approve of the projects, some of which are partially funded by grants from the state grants. And almost no one shows up to the annual millage rate and budget meetings, either for or against anything. It's an issue that being largely ignored, which to government, is implicit consent.
The issue of government spending and dense growth are linked. If you ignore spending and allow it to increase, it will cause the government to seek out additional and more lucrative sources of revenue. These more lucrative sources often have a big impact on current residents and the overall character and livability of the community.
Part of the strategy to address growth MUST be to address spending. As a community, we need to question expenditures more. We need to consider the hidden and ongoing costs of projects. And we need to ask ourselves whether some of these projects are worth ALL of what they cost us.