This week’s SPINCycle newsletter notes that realtors and home builders opposed impact fees in Lincoln County and won.
[T]he County Commissioners defeated a proposal by a 3-2 that might
have controlled growth or imposed fees on those who spurred it.
Instead, all the taxpayers of the county will pay for the growth,
likely through higher taxes.
Ignoring the assumption that growth doesn’t pay — tell that to the
shrinking towns and counties across the state — all the taxpayers of
the county would have paid for the impact fees through higher property
taxes anyway. The impact fee would have been embedded in the cost of
new homes, which would have pushed valuations that much higher and,
voila, you end up with Buncombe County’s 45 percent spike in valuations for property taxes.
Existing property owners already have too much power over the new
development through draconian zoning ordinances and meddlesome rules,
like in Knightdale.
