For those of you who have the pleasure of paying property taxes, this is a good explanation of localities’ needs and methods for determining their millage rates.The key insight here is that aggregate real estate tax rates are set simply to cover the locality’s budget. There is no ‘fair,’ ‘equitable,’ or ‘normal’ real estate tax rate. It all depends on two things: How much the locality wishes to spendHow much local voters are willing to tolerate as their individual tax burdens.Here are the local mil rates for Central Virginia. Aargh. Government is the only “business” that I know of that seems to determine how much they need, and then they go out and take it.
Browsing Category Politics
Crozet’s Growth
Charlottesville Tomorrow has a good summary of the Albemarle County BoS meeting today, specifically relating to the Crozet Master Plan. Also nice is that Cville Tomorrow has a podcast of the event.Wickham Pond was approved today as well.
More on APFs
Waldo has an interesting post today regarding APFs. This is going to be an interesting year, with perhaps some watershed moments and movements regarding our region’s growth.
Growth, sprawl, transportation and more
This month’s Rebellion is out. I haven’t read it yet, but it touches on some pressing issues – transportation, growth, land use … read it here.I said the essentially what he is saying below (with far less eloquence) the other day – From the standpoint of economic efficiency, transportation should be a “user pays†system. Political and civic leaders should disabuse voters of the notion that roads and highways are a free good. Someone must pay to build and maintain them.
Neighborhood Model – revisited?
This is potentially big news … and exciting. Courtesy of WINA.Citizen advocacy groups and some Albemarle Supervisors believe the new year will bring a renewed focus on the county’s Neighborhood Model. There are vocal critics of Albemarle’s approach to suburban sprawl who says it’s time the model got tweaked. … Loach is citing the county’s own surveys, which show dwindling support for the current approach.I am curious to know which citizen advocacy groups they are referring to. In light of the BoS meeting earlier this month where two of the Supervisors expressed real reservations about the Neighborhood Model’s direction, I look forward to seeing how this shakes out. 2006 should be a big year.
Not used to NoVa traffic, are you?
In a recent post regarding the dearth of senior housing in our region, I noted a new development coming to Greene County. One might think (as I did) that it would be a beneficial idea for this developer to provide some form of transportation for the future residents into Charlottesville. This development is being marketed as “Four Seasons Charlottesville” despite its location in Ruckersville.
An eye-opening opinion on transportation
Read the first response to this post at The Road To Ruin. If you can, read the whole thing…. new heavy rail systems appear much less energy-efficient than new bus services, when the energy needed to build roadways and track, the energy needed to manufacture and maintain vehicles, the energy used to heat and light stations, the energy required to drive to stations, and the directness of alternative modes of travel are taken into consideration. … The situation is even worse if high speed rail is considered because of the high quality dedicated track and grade separation that is required. Yet in spite of these obvious facts we still see pressure to increase rail service even when it would result in an overall system degradation of service.Huh. Maybe my desire for light rail really is pie-in-the-sky thinking after all. My question/desire remains however: How can we effectively/efficiently plan for inter-county/city/region transportation without using rail?