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 Posted: Mon, Jul 26 2010, 10:47 pm EDT Post subject: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26revenue.html
BEATRICE, Neb. — Give away land to make money?
It hardly sounds like a prudent scheme. But in a bit of déjà vu, that is exactly what this small Nebraska city aims to do.
Beatrice was a starting point for the Homestead Act of 1862, the federal law that handed land to pioneering farmers. Back then, the goal was to settle the West. The goal of Beatrice’s “Homestead Act of 2010,” is, in part, to replenish city coffers.
The calculus is simple, if counterintuitive: hand out city land now to ensure property tax revenues in the future.
“There are only so many ball fields a place can build,” Tobias J. Tempelmeyer, the city attorney, said the other day as he stared out at grassy lots, planted with lonely mailboxes, that the city is working to get rid of. “It really hurts having all this stuff off the tax rolls.”
Around the nation, cities and towns facing grim budget circumstances are grasping at unlikely — some would say desperate — means to bolster their shrunken tax bases. Like Beatrice, places like Dayton, Ohio, and Grafton, Ill., are giving away land for nominal fees or for nothing in the hope that it will boost the tax rolls and cut the lawn-mowing bills.
In Boca Raton, Fla., which faces a budget gap of more than $7 million, leaders are thinking about expanding the city’s size and annexing neighborhoods as an antidote. Sure, more residents would cost more in services, but officials hope the added tax revenues will more than make up for it.
And leaders in Manchester, N.H., and Concord, Mass., are taking an approach that might have once seemed politically unthinkable. They are re-examining whether their communities’ nonprofit organizations really deserve to be tax-free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26revenue.html |
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| Posted: Tue, Jul 27 2010, 12:50 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| Guest wrote: | http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26revenue.html
BEATRICE, Neb. — Give away land to make money?
It hardly sounds like a prudent scheme. But in a bit of déjà vu, that is exactly what this small Nebraska city aims to do.
Beatrice was a starting point for the Homestead Act of 1862, the federal law that handed land to pioneering farmers. Back then, the goal was to settle the West. The goal of Beatrice’s “Homestead Act of 2010,” is, in part, to replenish city coffers.
The calculus is simple, if counterintuitive: hand out city land now to ensure property tax revenues in the future.
“There are only so many ball fields a place can build,” Tobias J. Tempelmeyer, the city attorney, said the other day as he stared out at grassy lots, planted with lonely mailboxes, that the city is working to get rid of. “It really hurts having all this stuff off the tax rolls.”
Around the nation, cities and towns facing grim budget circumstances are grasping at unlikely — some would say desperate — means to bolster their shrunken tax bases. Like Beatrice, places like Dayton, Ohio, and Grafton, Ill., are giving away land for nominal fees or for nothing in the hope that it will boost the tax rolls and cut the lawn-mowing bills.
In Boca Raton, Fla., which faces a budget gap of more than $7 million, leaders are thinking about expanding the city’s size and annexing neighborhoods as an antidote. Sure, more residents would cost more in services, but officials hope the added tax revenues will more than make up for it.
And leaders in Manchester, N.H., and Concord, Mass., are taking an approach that might have once seemed politically unthinkable. They are re-examining whether their communities’ nonprofit organizations really deserve to be tax-free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26revenue.html |
But, the land is in Nebraska!!!!!!!!!! |
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| Posted: Tue, Jul 27 2010, 7:55 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| That last line in the article is interesting. Does anyone know how much non-taxed property there is in Cranbury? |
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| Posted: Tue, Jul 27 2010, 8:12 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| well, schools, religious property, open space. All is non-taxable so I'd imagine a lot. However, the open space saves us from infrastructure costs. |
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| Posted: Tue, Jul 27 2010, 9:21 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| How about all the affordable housing and the taxes we do not receive for that property $$$ |
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| Posted: Thu, Jul 29 2010, 8:08 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| And I would guess the church parsonages and Historical Society building. Others? |
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| Posted: Thu, Jul 29 2010, 9:57 am EDT Post subject: Re: Strapped towns and cities giving away land -- to cut lawn mowing bills! |
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| parks, including barn parks... |
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