MR bonds DO NOT PAY for ongoing municipal/county services to a development. They only pay for the initial construction of municipal/county facilities and schools which will be used by this new population. A brand new empty police substation, branch libary or school is worthless without humans to staff it.
The sole cause of this “boom-bust” cycle causing fiscal instability to many jurisdictions of this state is undoubtedly too many approved subdivisions.[/quote]
Right, but even when not taking MR or special bonds into consideration, the new housing developments almost always bring more money, per household, into the city’s coffers via regular property taxes because of Prop 13. So, if the new developments aren’t paying their way, then the old residents paying their (highly subsidized by the new taxpayers) Prop 13 taxes sure aren’t, either.[/quote]
I agree that a large portion of CA’s established homeowners are getting HUGE (up to 90%) discounts on their property taxes. But as a case in point, I CAN tell you that before the City of Chula Vista annexed 3 more zip codes (91913, 91914, and 91915), one after the other, causing it to grow from a population of 52K in 1986 to its 277K people today, it (and its residents) were much better off. It had a small govm’t that was “right-sized” for 52K people and all its blocks were regularly taken care of and a couple of small uninc pockets (180-200 people) were quietly folded into 91911 and subsequently got sidewalks and storm drains. One could drive from the South County courthouse to the dtn SD courthouse (12 mi) in 12-15 min during “rush hour” even though the SR-54 did not exist at that time. Now it takes 23-38 mins to get to dtn SD from dtn CV during rush hr and nearly one hour from the far reaches of 91915. There is a 9.5 to 10 month wait for a tree trimmer after you get your name on a list and police officers are choosy about what types of events they’ll respond to even though there are at least 4X as many of them than in 1986. The fees at the municipal dump are 10x what they were back then and the permitting fees are 4-5x as much. In addition, traffic on some Chula Vista east-west surface streets in the older areas has increased 20-fold due to commuters from the newer areas driving through the older areas to catch the “free” freeways because “their” fwy (the SR-125) is a (pricey) toll road and they feel they’re already “fee’d to death.” This was after CalTrans opened up these residential thoroughfares to go over or under I-805 in recent years. Naturally, the affected residents were livid but lost to CalTrans and their fleet of taxpayer-funded in-house attorneys who were at the behest of Big Development whose palms were undoubtedly being simultaneously greased by City officials.
Chula Vista is but a microcosm of any established city in the state where their leaders elected to sell out to Big Development, letting them run amok over all our land, cutting off the top of every single hill they could get their grubby hands on and putting up crap shacks (mostly 6-8 feet apart mixed with various types of multifamily dwellings). There are so many cars parked on some of the (newer) narrow streets in CV that only one vehicle can get through at a time while oncoming vehicles have to wait until it passes before proceeding. Most of these developers “substandardized” absolutely everything in order to cram the most units they could on one acre. All this happened under the “watchful eye” of City Planning (looking the other way while holding their hands out for campaign donations for their favorite cronies).
I could go on, but suffice to say that the presence of the newer residents has greatly affected the quality of life of the more established residents … all to their detriment.
Why was there a need to develop at all? We didn’t need more residents and bigger gubment in the first place. The established residents already had everything they needed and the city was just fine the way it was and was never in danger of “laying off” or failing to provide needed services as it has been in recent years.
If San Diego County had imposed a residential building moratorium in say, 1992, along with all of its cities (excepting remodel, granting variances under certain conditions and spec and infill construction), then our property values would be much higher than they are (maybe not as high as SV, due to lack of industry, but certainly higher than they are now). Since 1987, when Chula Vista debuted the first CFDs formed in the county, I truly believe that the new housing tracts which have sprung up since then have lured over one million newcomers to the area who otherwise wouldn’t have moved here if they had to rent or purchase existing housing to live in. So goes the phrase, “Build them and they will come.”
But SD County really didn’t need all these new people in the first place!
If newcomers really WANTED to live in a SD County and there was no new construction, they would have rented or bought an existing property, just as those newcomers do who really WANT to be in SF OR SV.
As I’ve stated here before, I don’t believe it is the gubment’s job to build affordable housing, guarantee affordable housing, offer affordable housing (yes, even the military), distribute housing vouchers, etc in a CA coastal county and certainly not in a “coastal zone” (~8 miles from the coast). It is not their “duty” to do so and low and moderate income people shouldn’t even expect to be able to live there.
I saw the question here, “Where would all the service workers live?” In SD County, they would live in an unpermitted granny flat, garage apt, mom and/or dad’s back bdrm, Tijuana, or out of the coastal zone in a cheaper area, as they always have.
I personally have never patronized Walmart, dollar stores, fast food restaurants, etc and could care less if they all go away. The Marin county cities of Tiburon, Sausalito and Mill Valley have never permitted franchises of any kind including fast food and drive thru restaurants. Big box stores are banned as well as chain grocery stores and dept stores. Business signage is limited to 20 feet and billboards are forbidden. As such, the environment there is absolutely pristine and its property values are a testament to that. The same type of restrictions are prevalent in several other northern CA coastal cities and towns, including several in the wine country and that’s the way the local residents like it. In addition, all these areas have residential building moratoriums and ample open space and that is never going to change. There is little industry in any of these small cities and no one cares, nor are any of them in any danger of filing for BK protection.
So many of the “Golden State’s” leaders have sold their constituencies down the river in the name of “adding population” (in effort to increase their own perceived “power”) that its golden sheen wore off long ago, especially in SoCal. It’s disgusting to me to see the quality of life here deteriorate the way it has … mostly through the added “daily hassle factor.” I’ve lived in Cali nearly all my life and can well afford to “retire in place” but am seriously giving thought to trying out another locale, at least for 1-2 years (for comparison purposes).
