Did voters understand 2006 Open Space referendum?
November 16, 2006 • (0) Comments
Going into this election, we knew that some voters would say No to any tax increase, but vetoing this program was “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
Last Tuesday, voters in Peapack-Gladstone Borough easily defeated a Local Question authorizing an increase in our local Open Space property tax from 3 cents up to 6 cents. I can hardly blame those friends and neighbors who sent a message that they’ve had “enough!” of higher property taxes here. Unfortunately, our eight year-old Open Space Trust has been the best weapon local taxpayers have had to defend us from the root cause behind most New Jersey property tax pain: residential sprawl and its associated demand for new municipal services. Going into this election, we knew that some voters would say No to any tax increase, but vetoing this program was “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
Our Open Space Advisory Committee calculates that new housing authorized by our zoning regulations on plots acquired by the town since 1999 would have added a minimum of $2,221 each year to the tax bills of median homeowners. This represents an additional $3 million in municipal expenses that isn’t matched by one penny’s worth of new services.
And doesn’t begin to account for what might have occurred had Natirar ever become a housing tract, an outcome long regarded here as the ultimate Doomsday Scenario.
Someone could argue that development might have also been avoided through adroit Land Use advocacy, but I don’t agree. The law as written is on the side of compliant developers and the Borough rarely litigates anything short of a slam-dunk. I think we’re asking too much of suburban Land Use boards when we ask them to hold the line on sprawl with the tools the law provides. I’m also a believer that private property rights should trump public expediency. Our experience since 1998 shows that fair-market public acquisition of undeveloped lands is “tax-smart” and a community’s best defense.
Where’d we get our figures? We calculated the financial impact using current Somerset Hills School District tuitions charged to the Borough, strictly on the basis of our enrollment. We’re ignoring additional demand for municipal services like emergency protection, sanitation, code enforcement, etc. (although those expenses would certainly be effected by the addition of 155 new residential units). Moreover, no effort has been made to monetize quality-of-life costs, including additional traffic or “loss of Commons” aspects like our felicitous viewsheds or crowding in public amenities.
Recent median home assessments run about $761,000 in the Borough, so the total annual cost of our program for a hypothetical median homeowner would have been $457 if levied at the top rate of 6 cents. Given the leeway sought in the referendum, our Borough Council would have sought that much only if the community needed it to forestall some even-larger threat that would have made our $2,221 figure grow higher, too.
So, you do the math and tell me which voters were “pound-foolish” on November 7.
I have little doubt that some people are looking around and saying that new housing starts are down, that builders are unprepared to commit large projects until they sell existing inventory, and that there aren’t any “big impact” parcels coming on-market here at this time. In other words, why buy land until there’s an imminent emergency? But they’re wrong about the parcels and they’re wrong to think we can kick-start this program again in a single economic cycle.
Peapack-Gladstone Borough currently needs an additional source of money to secure already-awarded matching grants (about $2 million that we haven’t claimed) and it’s not clear that we’ll be able to do that. Sadly, those grants represent more money than our defeated tax proposal would have raised through 2012 or beyond. So we’re either going to have to wait for future borough assessments or bring this back to voters in another format. Borough Council here will never levy a higher Open Space tax without winning public approval first.
Make no mistake, I’m as reluctant as any Republican to advocate higher property taxes. I just hate paying more for the same or fewer municipal services while builders crowd this place like they’ve done everywhere else in New Jersey.
So you can call me cranky.