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So the townies should pay both property and sales tax while those that live I the public private dorms don't ?

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Wow, so many unstated assumptions in that statement above.

TAMU has a vested interest in having freshmen live on campus, in order to build "the Aggie Spirit".

Because of the politics of the Texas Legislature, it is easier to get a bill allowing public-private enterprises than to get funding to build dorms entirely on state funding.

TAMU does not have (IMO rightly) any interest in selling state land to private developers.

Given these three statements, public-private dorms are the only option. The alternates are to tell TAMU 1) force some freshmen to live off campus, 2) do not grow. Neither are realistic options.

I understand the issue of non-profit universities not contributing to the tax-base of a community through property tax. I would view it as a free-market opportunity for developers. Provide a service of better quality at a lower cost than the public-private dorms (which I have heard are quite expensive.)

As others have pointed out, this is the drawback to a college town. One of the positive sides is getting all the retired old Ags back who pay property taxes on their homes in Pebble Creek, Miramont and Traditions, instead of in CyFair. I'd love to see someone run the numbers on that.

Another hypothetical - Lake Sommerville has state-owned campsites in the park. Do you think this is wrong because the towns of Sommerville and Dime Box are now unable to collect property tax on campsites on private land in their town boundaries? The state (actually the Army Corp of Engineers) created the attractive entity that leads to people wanting to pay money to stay there. Giving this opportunity to someone who just happens to own land next to the park is rent-seeking (in the economic sense) in the extreme - the land owner didn't have to invest much at all, he/she just got lucky.

An analogous situation exists in College Station.

Since you agree with me on the issue of tax base. I would ask you to consider that having public-private dorms is not a free market activity. How many developers can go to the free market, and get debt backed by TAMU owned property? Also, how many developers can when they build their cash flow models, and IRR returns for investors, say that all cash flow will be tax free (look at NCCD structure). If anything public-private partnerships such as this, with the desire to meet the ever growing need of housing, actually is in the opposite direction of free-market capitalism. Also, isn't it current policy by TAMU to ask/request Freshmen to live in dorms? Isn't this against free market, and inflates the cost to the students? In addition, just thinking of the financing, that a 30 year ground lease would be treated as owning the land backed by an asset. If not, then there would be no back that would lend the amount of debt they are asking for to be raised.

Let's take your lake Sommerville example, how much more in terms of the general county does it now require to serve this lake? Additional tax dollars for roads, infrastructure? How much does the lake make in terms of renting camp sites versus what the city makes in additional tourism dollars. Or even better, how many people visit the lake, stay, and absorb resources from the county/city? In reality very very little. This is like comparing apples and oranges. I would argue that two large public-private dorms absorb renters that the free market would have readily built housing for, with a tax base. And this additional tax base would go to relieve the resource burden on existing infrastructure.

And those old Ags, happy to have them. More the merrier. They own homes, and contribute to the pot for resources they use.


** FYI I welcome open discourse and discussion, outside of bashing so called townies.

Sorry to tell you this. I am not complaining about students. Nor am I anti-TAMU. And these comments about "Townie", which according to this thread is negative. Which espouses the view that if you live in College Station keep your mouth shut, and take it. I also wonder how many people who are so readily able to say "townie" , or "CS wouldn't exist" how many of you in reality live here, work here, and pay taxes?


Let's address some of the comments here:

1. Sales tax is at the state level, it is not used by cities to recoup costs associated with infrastructure
2. The volume of sales would happen no matter what. Those same students based on Sharp's vision of TAMU are coming irregardless if this structure is built on TAMU property tax free or on a tax base generating private land



I do live here and have no problem with it. Your are incorrect because 2% of sales tax is shared locally and irregardless is not a word. I fail to see how this is any different than if the university had just built the dorms. There would have been no property tax revenue that way either.

Irregardless - Merriam Webster

My argument is simply this, a town such as college station / bryan, which is so biased toward TAMU related activities, deals with/ suffers from additonal cost of infrastructure without any recourse to pay for the improvement and maintenance of said infrastructure when private corporations are allowed to build revenue generating assets which do not improve the tax base. Simple accounting problem: Increased demand , with no additional supply , means those tax dollars have to come from somewhere. Where do they come from? Private corporations, homeowners, and other tax generating assets.

Also, there is no "Additional sales tax", see my argument previously. Those students are coming here, the sales revenue generated are not disappearing overnight if you don't build a dorm. Probably had the free market decided as mentioned above, some developer would have purchased private land, built apartments, those apartments would generate tax dollars, and the same amount of sales tax would be recouped.

Per your link posted it is non-standard and you should use regardless.

But moving on, if it was not on property already owned by the university it would be a different matter. But the university could have just build the dorm on their own just like all the others on campus and there would still be no tax revenue. I don't think that what is best for the school is always best for the city, but moved here with eyes wide open that would be the case.

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Since you agree with me on the issue of tax base. I would ask you to consider that having public-private dorms is not a free market activity.

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Yes and no. TAMU has been quite open about the fact that they will get money from the developers over the lifetime of the contract to put back into the university. It isn't free market if you think that state entities should not participate in the market. Given the number of times TAMU has been told it should act "more like a business", I view it as hypocritical to criticize TAMU for getting rent money from students, instead of private developers (of land not owned by TAMU) getting that money.

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Also, isn't it current policy by TAMU to ask/request Freshmen to live in dorms? Isn't this against free market, and inflates the cost to the students?

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IMO, TAMU's interest in having freshmen live on campus springs from a desire to build a sense of community. It is true that this leads to an inflation of costs for the students, because the state won't pay for dorms. TAMU makes the best lemonade of the lemons the legislature gives it.

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Also, how many developers can when they build their cash flow models, and IRR returns for investors, say that all cash flow will be tax free (look at NCCD structure).

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This assumes that the developers of the new dorms had some inside track to get the deal. Look at it this way - I have some land. I am willing to lease it at less than the going rate to get something built on it. (Less than the going rate = tax free) Any developer can put together a competitive package.to win the project.

If your problem with the project is that the actual developers got a deal unavailable to other developers, that is a different problem than the property taxes for CS.

Your critique of my Lake Sommerville hypothetical boils down to "Sommerville and Dime Box couldn't make much tax money off of campsites, so it doesn't matter." If we're talking magnitude only, then yes, you are right. That of course begs the question how much University development is too much. The University does rent office space from private developers. Should the University stop building new lab and teaching buildings and only rent from private firms? That would be a big departure from accepted practice.

But really you're talking displacement - this project displaces a comparable private housing project. I can't say this isn't true in the aggregrate, but forcing non-city entities to do what is best for the city's tax collections isn't the way things are done (and the University and city interests are not always aligned.) For example, the shopping center in Northgate where the Stack is now had a vacant Albertson's for about a decade. It would have been better for the city in terms of tax collection and overall civic life if that shopping center had had some activity. But the city didn't force the Culpeppers to develop it; the Stack was developed when the Culpeppers wanted too. Likewise the city wasn't happy when a lot of the frontage along 6 was bought by churches, and removed from the tax rolls - would you really argue that the churches on 6 should be forced to sell their land to developers and move to less desirable plots?

Water, sanitary sewer, and electrical services are being provided by TAMU, not either of the two cities.

Now, OP, if you can get the city council to get some say on concessions at athletic events...just saying.

As long as they find a away to pass some of the fees into staff parking passes...maybe build some new parking garages for the new dorms.

My definition of a free market is obviously not comparable with what many believe here. Free markets still require regulation. Look what happens when they are not (or poorly) regulated. And I was born here, so townie is my badge of honor. This probably hurts rental house owners and apts/4 plex owners the hardest. I am more worried about the $1+ trillion in student loan debt and the ever increasing cost of a college education and the burden on taxpayers when that bubble bursts. Amazing that students can get $175K in debt by the time they graduate. I know a couple of them and they are getting starting salaries in the mid $40's. Try and live AND service that kind of debt...the numbers don't really work, esp when they live and work in an expensive part of California to get the $40K job.

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Try and live AND service that kind of debt...the numbers don't really work, esp when they live and work in an expensive part of California to get the $40K job.

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I agree Yucca, and I could've been in that boat if not for a hard working wife (while I was in grad school) I'd have a mountain of student loan debt. and we're happy to be here where real estate is relatively cheap...

Can't students find relatively affordable places to live and share the expenses, or does every student today need their own house or spacious 3 bedroom apartment?

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So the townies should pay both property and sales tax while those that live I the public private dorms don't ?

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Should I still have to pay school taxes even though I don't have children?

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I would be more than happy to have an A La Carte tax system, but we know how that works or how much opposition it would face. I would be happy to get rid of all forms of taxes such as FICA, Social Security, you name it. You should pay taxes for those services you use or need such as you know what an orderly society needs fire, police, parks, etc.


I have young kids who are not in public school, should I pay taxes for public school which my kids are not currently using? If someone sends their kids to private school, should they pay both for private school tution, and pay taxes for a public school they don't plan on sending their kids too. What about the additional police presence that is needed, or expanded fire facilities, traffic planning, other city services that are caused because a good majority of the city is college based. Should I pay for increased services which I didn't cause? Maybe TAMU should police NG, have their own fire department that responds too students that live in the private-public dorms.

From one of the many blogs I irregularly read, re "should I still have to pay school tax"...

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I'm fond of drawing connections to the monetary and fiscal policy. These factors drive most of human behavior.

For example, in the past, public education was considered a good deal. It was a way of educating the next generation at low cost, and that next generation went on to help fund old people in retirement.
For example, an older person would be allowed to have savings, and those savings then became loans for young people. Young people through their mortgages would fund old people in retirement. Housing prices were held low as people had to save up a large percentage to even get a loan. Savings and loans in particular, were intermediated real money...they were not newly hypothecated credit, as in today's banking world.

Costs were kept low in public education, because a single wage earner could form a household. The rent taking overhead in society was much lower, and much of the economy was gift. Today, almost everything is monetized; this to pay ever expanding debts - which in turn is a functional output of the credit/debt bank system.

Since there was single wage households, women could volunteer in public schools. These women would keep an eye on things and not let them spiral out of control. Women in neighborhoods also kept crime low, and were a ready workforce to control children. This is why a non monetized society of this type can keep its doors unlocked, as social cohesion is much improved.

Allowing private credit banking to monetize everything, to then allow women to have to work, to then also immigrate "debt free" third world wage, to then export jobs as capital seeks low cost labor....
All of this is CRAZY.

Private Credit means has parasitized Western man's brain. The normal circuit breakers and feedback of a functioning society have been breached.

So, it is no wonder that people complain about paying for education, yet if one thinks about it, that is truly the one cost that a functioning society must bear. It must educate the next generation, or it will fail in one generation.

There is a generational compact implied, especially as one generation grows up receiving benefit, it is their obligation to pass that benefit onto the next.

Only, in these very strange times, mankind ihas entered into uncharted waters where finance has taken over, and society is upside down. The generational compact is broken, and livelyhood is exported. Meanwhile debt free labor is imported to then allow Oligarchy to feed further on the rotting corpse of the West due to rent seeking on wages. Debt free immigrants are also new fodder to create new credit against.

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CS without students is exactly what Brenham is today.

I do not know of any tax systems that are fair to everyone. Some one will always cry about some form of tax not being fair.

Texas is a great big state, this cannot and will not be changed, so I don't get the fuss about it. Maybe move to a more tax friendly/equal city?

If it is really that big of a concern, form a coalition to protest on capitol hill regularly, unite against Big Govt and taxes and actually work towards abolishing this(Good luck with this).

This is about as beneficial as arguing if the sky is blue or gray.

For the record, I love the students as my current life is not the same without them.

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Since you agree with me on the issue of tax base. I would ask you to consider that having public-private dorms is not a free market activity.

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Yes and no. TAMU has been quite open about the fact that they will get money from the developers over the lifetime of the contract to put back into the university. It isn't free market if you think that state entities should not participate in the market. Given the number of times TAMU has been told it should act "more like a business", I view it as hypocritical to criticize TAMU for getting rent money from students, instead of private developers (of land not owned by TAMU) getting that money.

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Also, isn't it current policy by TAMU to ask/request Freshmen to live in dorms? Isn't this against free market, and inflates the cost to the students?

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IMO, TAMU's interest in having freshmen live on campus springs from a desire to build a sense of community. It is true that this leads to an inflation of costs for the students, because the state won't pay for dorms. TAMU makes the best lemonade of the lemons the legislature gives it.

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Also, how many developers can when they build their cash flow models, and IRR returns for investors, say that all cash flow will be tax free (look at NCCD structure).

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This assumes that the developers of the new dorms had some inside track to get the deal. Look at it this way - I have some land. I am willing to lease it at less than the going rate to get something built on it. (Less than the going rate = tax free) Any developer can put together a competitive package.to win the project.

If your problem with the project is that the actual developers got a deal unavailable to other developers, that is a different problem than the property taxes for CS.

Your critique of my Lake Sommerville hypothetical boils down to "Sommerville and Dime Box couldn't make much tax money off of campsites, so it doesn't matter." If we're talking magnitude only, then yes, you are right. That of course begs the question how much University development is too much. The University does rent office space from private developers. Should the University stop building new lab and teaching buildings and only rent from private firms? That would be a big departure from accepted practice.

But really you're talking displacement - this project displaces a comparable private housing project. I can't say this isn't true in the aggregrate, but forcing non-city entities to do what is best for the city's tax collections isn't the way things are done (and the University and city interests are not always aligned.) For example, the shopping center in Northgate where the Stack is now had a vacant Albertson's for about a decade. It would have been better for the city in terms of tax collection and overall civic life if that shopping center had had some activity. But the city didn't force the Culpeppers to develop it; the Stack was developed when the Culpeppers wanted too. Likewise the city wasn't happy when a lot of the frontage along 6 was bought by churches, and removed from the tax rolls - would you really argue that the churches on 6 should be forced to sell their land to developers and move to less desirable plots?

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Lost My Dog making some great points.

As a condo owner i am not happy about 3500 new units on the market to compete with me.

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As a condo owner i am not happy about 3500 new units on the market to compete with me.

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Drive by Northgate lately? There's a lot more than 3500 new units off campus.