The planning board, in a public hearing last week voted to recommend waiving the school impact fees for the 55+ housing complex being built at the Country Club. The effect of this decision, should it pass the voters will be to give Mr. Lewis a $600,000- $800,000 gift at the Town's expense. And why is this necesary? hmmm, this blog doesn't know...
It is not an incentive to get the project built because it is going to be built anyway.
I know that with the age designation it would appear that their will be no impact on schools, but do we know that? Do we know how many grandparents will have their grandkids living with them because Timberlane's schools are better than Lawrence or wherever their kids live? Do we know how many grandparents will move out of homes on walker rd. or somewhere else in town where they raised their kids and move into the new project leaving their old home open for the family with 4 kids to move into? Has anyone done an independent study of this?
Normally this blog would be in favor of this type of free market incentivism, but in this case these fees which are about $2000 per unit x 300-400 units means the town loses $600,000- $800,000. and for what? Typically these fees go to the town and in the past the town has used them to offset a portion of the school districts extortion demand upon our budget. Either way it is 3/4 of a million dollars that doesn't have to come from the taxpayers.
Now this blog is not criticizing Mr. Lewis at all. His contributions to this town are legion. Every project he has built in town has helped to keep our tax rate among the lowest in southern NH. And leaving these fees in place are not going to hurt him one bit. That $2000 will simply be built into the price of the condo and paid by the purchaser. Noone gets hurt here and the town wins. The town will win big with this project anyway. The revenue to be brought in by this project will offset approximately 25-30% of our Towns portion of the budget, if the Budget Committee can keep the Selectmen from spending it all like drunken sailors, it will reduce everyone in towns taxes by a similar amount.
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5 comments:
Regarding impact fees,I believe this blog is erroneous. The impact fee collected per unit for a condo is $575 not $2000. Also impact fee are utilized at the request of the school district and their use is very specific, ie: new buildings.
Welcome Anonymous, Further investigation by this blog has found that you are right! And we apologize for passing on erroneous information initially. When we found out the school impact fees collected it never occurred to us that it would be vastly different for condos. But even at $575/ unit
This is still between $172,500 and $230,000 that is no longer revenue. And we have found nothing that prevents these fees from being used to offset the school districts portion of the budget, as has been done in other towns in recent years.
It is amusing that with the passage of time residents fail to remember that we were sold a bill of goods being told that building the 55+ housing complex WOULD REDUCE OUR TAXES by increasing the tax base. Although $172,500-$230,000 is not a huge amount to offset the school tax it is much more than nothing.
Actually, Anonymous, it WILL greatly reduce our taxes. look at it this way 400 units@ $400k each average is $160M in valuation added to the town. This means $2.4M in tax revenue to the town. Now most of these new residents will not have kids in the school district, so the majority of the money will stay in town. Th towns portion of the budget is $4M This means that the project could reduce our property tax by as much as 55% less the increased spending
I know that with the age designation it would appear that their will be no impact on schools, but do we know that? Do we know how many grandparents will have their grandkids living with them because Timberlane's schools are better than Lawrence or wherever their kids live?
....in response to this remark...,
there won't be children living with grandparents. unless i heard wrong no person under the age of 55 may live in the condos, even unmarried children in their 30's from what board said. NOW that being said, when do things go the way they were originally intended after the deal is sealed?
But what about the impact to the police, fire and EMT?
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