ARIZONA DAILY STAR: Fri., June 24, 2005
Builders provide a sound case in favor of growth
Opinion by Richard Ducote
We must crack down on crime.
We are going to make development pay for itself.
We are bringing in a whole bunch of high-paying jobs. Pick your favorite campaign pacifier.
I like the middle one, the old saw about nailing those rapacious developers who expect us all to pay while they pillage.
It comes up all the time. Most recently, it was used by opponents of the Tucson water bonds that voters passed by a wide margin.
It sounds good on the campaign stump and has gone unanswered for years. Until now.
The Southern Arizona Home Builders Association has begun a public campaign to untie the knot that has been pulled tight by those who want to turn Tucson into one big gated community. These people think the gate should slam shut right after they slip in.
SAHBA commissioned a study by its national association using figures supplied by local governments. The bottom line of the study is that growth essentially pays for itself in four years through fees and taxes. After that, money continues to flow toward governments.
Impact fees are now a fact of life for builders and buyers in every local market. If growth ever was subsidized by longtime residents, those days are gone.
Remember that every fee and tax attached to "growth" makes housing ever more costly. Builders don't pay these fees, after all - buyers do.
Growth does cost money, but people who live in those new houses are helping to pay for it. Besides impact and permit fees and taxes that total thousands, they also pay other taxes that help build roads, schools and parks. Tax money continues to flow after the "cost of growth" has been settled.
Tucson has been on a growth curve since approximately the time of Father Kino three centuries ago. From a mission along the Santa Cruz and a small village, metro Tucson has grown to nearly a million people.
Developers didn't lure people here in order to sucker them into buying houses. People were not fooled into getting on Greyhounds in the Midwest and dropped off here in the dead of night.
Builders don't cause growth, they respond to demand.
Piling fees and taxes onto the housing market won't stop growth, it will only change the nature of the market. More costly housing does not necessarily mean better housing or more productive residents.
If I live in the middle of town, I'm using streets and a water system put in place decades ago. Does that mean I should stop paying property taxes or expect my water rate to be unchanged from 1957? Hardly.
Sometimes, I like to drive on Sunrise Drive. Since I'm not from the immediate 'hood, should I toss a couple of quarters into the landscaped median just to help out? No.
Impact fees have come upon us because local governments are strapped to provide decent services to all constituents.
That is a bigger problem than "making growth pay for itself."
We need consensus about what we want and how we will pay for it. We need better roads and lots of other things and not just on the fringe of town.
We are all in this together.
? Contact Richard Ducote at 573-4178 or rducote@azstarnet.com .
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