…retirees, homebuilders, and anyone else who thinks saving the transit sales tax will help keep their property taxes down. Think again.

This observation is prompted by the giant Save the Tax sign outside the Allen-Tate building in Phillips Place. I just want to go on record as guaranteeing that property tax hikes — both city and county — will happen if you actually do Save the Tax and fail to restraint run-away train building.

As we’ve pointed out over and over and over, the current transit plan is already counting on $66 to $76 million in future property tax revenue in order to build the $470 million North line. But meanwhile, other local government capital spending will continue, wiping out any chance of avoiding a property tax hike.

In fact, county officials are already all but counting on a new land transfer tax just to handle the school construction spending they have planned. Check out what The Rhino Times reported yesterday:

In 2004, CMS debt was $34.81 million on principal of $43.39 million for a total of $78.21 million. By 2008, if the November bond package is approved and CMS spends at the rate officials have said they could, the debt will be $62.24 million on principal of $79.49 million, for a total of $141.73 million.

“It will have increased at a rate that cannot avoid a massive tax increase,” said school board member Larry Gauvreau, who opposes the CMS bond package. Gauvreau said the package not only is misprioritized, placing projects such as stadiums and auditoriums over classrooms and still not doing enough to relieve the criminal overcrowding of suburban schools, but also too expensive.

“People will be taxed until their eyes pop out, if this bond is approved,” Gauvreau said of the county’s projections.
The numbers, though, come with a caveat. They assume the county wouldn’t receive any offsetting revenues to mitigate the bonds’ impact. For example, if Mecklenburg were to get its hands on a land-transfer tax or another similar alternative revenue stream, the property tax rate could remain more stable.

“It doesn’t mean the tax rate will go up,” Mecklenburg County Director of Finance Dena Diorio said of the projection numbers her department provided. “We have other revenues we use to offset the property tax. The budget is a living, breathing process and this is only one piece of it.”

Still, CMS debt service based on the $516 million bond request would jump from $11.5 million in 2009 to $48.15 million in 2012, a staggering increase of 318 percent.

But Diorio’s revenue pie is sure to shrink as both city and county property tax revenues are re-directed via tax increment financing schemes to build future train lines. There is simply no other way to build and operate a $9 billion transit system

It would be one thing if supporters of the tax stood up and argued for this great and wonderful transit plan on its merits and admitted that, no, the half-cent will not pay for all of it. But that is not happening. Instead voters are being told that the first thing those in charge of $2 billion worth local government spending would do cut $2 million worth of transportation for the disabled and elderly.

That is shameful. Gutless. Cowardly.

Ask you local real estate professional for more information.

Update: Here’s some crack-smokery from the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. “Charlotte needs an effective mass transportation system to remain competitive in recruiting new jobs and industry to our region.” Yes. And we do not have one. Repeal is the only way to force our so-called leaders to drop land-use speculation and implement an actual transportation plan.