When hearing candidates talk about "growth", some of them are picking up on the fact that "growth" is an ambiguous term. It is common to hear them say, "growth is going to happen one way or another." But what kind of growth needs to be perfectly clear to have effective communication. The speaker and listener might have differing ideas about growth which changes the meaning about it.
Population Growth:
Waynesville is purposely increasing the population of Waynesville by a massive scale. The big Bi-Lo apartment complex is an example. There are more than 800 apartment units approved but not yet constructed. So these new housing units that are happening are with a purpose. The city is offering incentives for builders to construct those new units. (Meaning the city is requiring town citizens to fund the new housing unit demands on infrastructure.) So when you hear about population growth, then the questions are: (a) How much population growth, and (b) what kind of people will be added? The smart politician (or ignorant one that goes along with a strategy the Development Planner or Town Manager has) would use the answers to (a) and (b) for political gain. A left-wing strategy might be: "Let's increase the population by dependent-class people who need subsidies and low-income housing and let's do that in number to reverse the right-leaning voting trend that is more happening today."
Density Growth:
Waynesville is purposely trying to more use "infill development" -- or make better use of property in the town limits measured in population and tax revenue. That means without expanding the town limits, the town government is incentivized to want "more". More people and more taxes into the same area. Obviously that's going to require more infrastructure. The people paying for that "more infrastructure" is the taxpayer. So the taxpayer typically doesn't want a higher density town. A corrupted elected representative might take a position: "We are bringing in more people so that we have a better workforce; and we are collecting more taxes because of a higher density town." (I say "corrupted" because the elected representative should push back on government's desire to grow density as their voters do NOT want higher density but are corrupted to go along with the government instead.) The voter almost never asks to be represented by creating higher density development for the goal of more people and tax revenue. It's the GOVERNMENT that does that. Representatives need to be wise on that.
Area Growth:
This is annexation. Growing the town's square miles of area by voluntary or involuntary annexation. Keep in mind a property owner outside of the town services will want the town to annex them (or EJT) to get the town services and increase their land value. Also keep in mind that the current town taxpayer will (a) have their "ownership" of the town diluted with new area coming in, and (b) have to pay for the expansion of services for the new area. Think about yeas ago when Lake Junaluska wanted to be annexed by Waynesville. Who would get to pay for an entire community of failing water and sewer pipes for being annexed? Every taxpayer in Waynesville would send their hard-earned money to fix LJ's pipes that have been neglected for decades. The Waynesville government actually proposed that once and there are ACTIVE conversations about it today!
Quality of Life Growth:
This is the best kind of growth that a town can have as measured by the voters. This is when town citizens have property values that are increasing. This is when there are more availability in goods and services and those at an increased diversity. A plethora dining choices, good places to shop, and nothing lacking in city services.
If you want to over-simplify the concept of growth, imagine you buy an acre of land in the county and have a neighbor with another acre parcel. Together you decide to build a house on each lot and go in 50/50 on a well together. Both you and your neighbor own the well, get the benefits, and share the costs of the well. If your neighbor then has 10 kids and uses way more water, if you split the well power bill 50/50 then your neighbor has just used "population growth" to their advantage and left you holding the bag! If your neighbor later puts up a 10-unit apartment building on his land for those new kids and you still pay half the water bill they used "density growth" to their advantage. And if there is a 3rd property that wants in on the already-constructed well, is it fair that you have to pay to extend the water lines to that new property and then they will share 1/3 of the well electric bill?
Here's the kicker. In the mentioned scenario, if you and the neighbor originally hired a well contracting company to maintain the well, how would you feel if the well contracting company was able to let new people use your well at will? And charge any new people whatever they wanted for new use of the well? That's what our government does with the town's water resources. Do we really have elected representatives that think about our community water resources (and every other resource) this way? In theory, the "owners" of the well should tell the well-contracting company to stick it where the sun don't shine if they abuse YOUR resources or work against your interests!
And on the topic of "we need growth"... We only need growth as much as we have inflation -- and that's it. So if inflation is 3% and property values also grow at 3%, then you don't need any more growth. Inflation growing at 3% means it costs 3% more to operate city government. If property values also grow 3% then the amount of taxes also increases 3%. That's break even. But as all candidates acknowledge, property values in Waynesville have skyrocketed! That's a good problem to have. Although inflation is high, it is less than property value increases. If we had no other desires for growth and just kept everything the way it's been, our town should be flush with cash because property values have gone up more than inflation. For town residents that aren't also getting income increases to match property value increases, the town becomes more expensive to live. For town residents that are also getting income increases to match property value increases, their income is growing -- but so is their taxes so it's a wash. For those that can't afford the increasing property values because their income isn't going up, they can cash out selling their property at great profit. But every town in America would LOVE to have the problem that their property values are growing more than inflation. For Waynesville to try to stop that is harmful to the town. Again, an oversimplified example but it's been said that increasing crime means lower property values and therefore lower rents. But that theory can be applied to lots of scenarios to stop increasing property values. And that should really make you think hard about who gets to decide what kinds of growth we get to have.
Waynesville "Growth"
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Forum Member
Re: Waynesville "Growth"
A picture is worth 1,000 words:
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Last edited by Forum Member on Thu Oct 19, 2023 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Forum Member
Re: Waynesville "Growth"
Property values in Waynesville for the past 12 months have gone up 25%. (Property owners will need to pay taxes on the extra 25% in value their property is now worth.)
US inflation for the past 12 months has gone up 3.7%. (Local government will need to pay 3.7% more to keep everything the same. That's 3.7% cost of living adjustment of salaries and stuff that needs to be purchased.)
Local government needs to collect 3.7% more in taxes to keep up with inflation.
The "affordable housing problem" is there should be a 21.3% extra amount in the city/county tax collections from taxes paid on the increased property values -- what does a local government do with all that extra tax revenue? That's when a local government can adjust tax rates to be "revenue neutral" -- meaning they will adjust the rate to take in the same dollar amount (or the same dollar amount plus inflation).
The other side of the "affordable housing problem" is that citizens need to pay 25% more for property. (Cash, Mortgage, Rent -- all 25% more) That means housing costs AND inflation require someone to bring in 28.7% more income to offset increased housing costs. Keep going with this exercise of thought....
How will someone afford that 28.7% increase? They can only accept employment that will pay that higher amount. If local employers will not pay the increased salary/rate, the local employer will not have employees. For a local employer to pay the higher amounts, they will need to raise their prices. (Starting with realtors who are already earning their commissions on 25% increased property values.) Who will pay those increased prices? It will be those who are paying more for local increased properties. Eventually the economy will level out. People will say, "it's too expensive" to live in Waynesville and property values will stop rising. Local prices and compensation will eventually stop increasing when there are fewer people willing to pay more to be in Waynesville. A free market economy works if you let it. But the pain, fear, and anxiety that a changing economy causes is ripe for people to exploit -- especially in politics. Remember that when you hear "affordable housing crisis" and "we need growth" in the political arena.
The average woman's haircut in NC is $55. In California, it's $93. It costs more to live in California and those that cut women's hair adjusted to that increased cost of living. It costs more to live in Waynesville. Adjust. Government cannot stop the forces of a free market society.
PS -- Does anyone trust the government's inflation data that says 3.7? How much more do groceries and gas cost?
US inflation for the past 12 months has gone up 3.7%. (Local government will need to pay 3.7% more to keep everything the same. That's 3.7% cost of living adjustment of salaries and stuff that needs to be purchased.)
Local government needs to collect 3.7% more in taxes to keep up with inflation.
The "affordable housing problem" is there should be a 21.3% extra amount in the city/county tax collections from taxes paid on the increased property values -- what does a local government do with all that extra tax revenue? That's when a local government can adjust tax rates to be "revenue neutral" -- meaning they will adjust the rate to take in the same dollar amount (or the same dollar amount plus inflation).
The other side of the "affordable housing problem" is that citizens need to pay 25% more for property. (Cash, Mortgage, Rent -- all 25% more) That means housing costs AND inflation require someone to bring in 28.7% more income to offset increased housing costs. Keep going with this exercise of thought....
How will someone afford that 28.7% increase? They can only accept employment that will pay that higher amount. If local employers will not pay the increased salary/rate, the local employer will not have employees. For a local employer to pay the higher amounts, they will need to raise their prices. (Starting with realtors who are already earning their commissions on 25% increased property values.) Who will pay those increased prices? It will be those who are paying more for local increased properties. Eventually the economy will level out. People will say, "it's too expensive" to live in Waynesville and property values will stop rising. Local prices and compensation will eventually stop increasing when there are fewer people willing to pay more to be in Waynesville. A free market economy works if you let it. But the pain, fear, and anxiety that a changing economy causes is ripe for people to exploit -- especially in politics. Remember that when you hear "affordable housing crisis" and "we need growth" in the political arena.
The average woman's haircut in NC is $55. In California, it's $93. It costs more to live in California and those that cut women's hair adjusted to that increased cost of living. It costs more to live in Waynesville. Adjust. Government cannot stop the forces of a free market society.
- 25percent.PNG (26.31 KiB) Viewed 1911 times
- 37inflation.PNG (10.64 KiB) Viewed 1911 times
Last edited by Forum Member on Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Forum Member
Re: Waynesville "Growth"
It should also be said that when property values are up 25% in Waynesville, there won't be any trouble getting developers to build homes for that kind of return on investment. (Provided the town isn't blocked from allowing new connections to water/sewer because of deficiencies.)
We already have a land use plan and zoning. That is the mechanism to influence how/where development occurs.
Why is the Town using taxpayer dollars to cause a kind of development that isn't happening on its own? Why did the town have to create a fake study with political-participants to derive a report that was used to get the Council and local papers to yell "Affordable Housing Crisis!" at the taxpayers and voters?
This this way:
We already have a land use plan and zoning. That is the mechanism to influence how/where development occurs.
Why is the Town using taxpayer dollars to cause a kind of development that isn't happening on its own? Why did the town have to create a fake study with political-participants to derive a report that was used to get the Council and local papers to yell "Affordable Housing Crisis!" at the taxpayers and voters?
This this way:
- The entire county of Haywood in 2014 had 28 homeless. They built Pathways with 96 beds. That didn't reduce homeless, that caused a massive attraction of homeless and we STILL have a homeless problem -- just a bigger one today than 10 years ago.
- The entire country has an inflation problem and increased housing costs. The town is going to use local taxpayer money to build low income housing. That's not going to solve any problems with inflation or increased housing cost problems. That's going to cause more low-income people to move into our town and still have the problem on inflation and increased housing cost problems.