The money sure doesn't seem like it goes toward transportation planning. They just let developers build wherever they want and then figure out the roads later.
Imagine that....Mooney wants no limit on property tax increases
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Last: 5 yr ago by Drilltime
There has been some data published by the A&M Real Estate Center that shows the rising property values in BCS have really just parallel that of the entire state. If you live in a neighborhood the investors have targeted by Ag Shack investors you may have seen 200-300% increases in the land value in only 3-4 years, but the rise in values across the city as a whole is not out of line with the State. We continue to have an incredible number of people moving to Texas and they are competing for land and houses. Data shown at the Chamber of Commerce 2019 BCS Economic Outlook Conference suggests the rise in values in BCS is flatting out and we are now actually a little below the state trend.
But don't expect your taxes to stop rising as a result. College Station has accumulated $ 300M in unfunded liabilities, meaning we have bills coming our current taxation will not pay. The majority of this is due to infrastructure costs the developers of the new neighborhoods are not being asked to pay for. State law allows us to collect up to 50% of those costs for a reason, but we only collect 10%. If a new neighborhood creates $5000 per house in infrastructure cost, the developer only pays $ 500 and we all pay the rest. The logic for not requiring them to pay more is that it would inhibit growth. Really? So instead we are growing our way into debt and bankruptcy. The developers who have dominated city leadership in recent years seem to have not problem with this. This is one of the top two reasons College Station needed to re-balance the leadership in the last election.
We also have a problem in that the city is at an age when we will need to reinvest in the older infrastructure as well, and no city ever sets aside money for that as a business would. So for, we're just not keeping up systems upgrade, flooding and other issues. But you can only ride that horse for so long.
Anyway, the reduced rate of increase in property values means we can't count on value growth to pay for our growing liabilities. It's going to come from increases in the actual taxation rate We built it, and now we have to pay for it. I don't have a big problem with that. My problem is who is paying for it and who isn't.
But don't expect your taxes to stop rising as a result. College Station has accumulated $ 300M in unfunded liabilities, meaning we have bills coming our current taxation will not pay. The majority of this is due to infrastructure costs the developers of the new neighborhoods are not being asked to pay for. State law allows us to collect up to 50% of those costs for a reason, but we only collect 10%. If a new neighborhood creates $5000 per house in infrastructure cost, the developer only pays $ 500 and we all pay the rest. The logic for not requiring them to pay more is that it would inhibit growth. Really? So instead we are growing our way into debt and bankruptcy. The developers who have dominated city leadership in recent years seem to have not problem with this. This is one of the top two reasons College Station needed to re-balance the leadership in the last election.
We also have a problem in that the city is at an age when we will need to reinvest in the older infrastructure as well, and no city ever sets aside money for that as a business would. So for, we're just not keeping up systems upgrade, flooding and other issues. But you can only ride that horse for so long.
Anyway, the reduced rate of increase in property values means we can't count on value growth to pay for our growing liabilities. It's going to come from increases in the actual taxation rate We built it, and now we have to pay for it. I don't have a big problem with that. My problem is who is paying for it and who isn't.