"Paying for Public Infrastructure"

This is the title of the op/ed page in The Times Dispatch on Saturday February 23, 2008. The page had a view from Virginia Sen. John Watkins and a contrasting view from Chesterfield County supervisors Art Warren and Dan Gecker. And what a contrast.
Sen. Watkins is introducing a bill that would eliminate the cash proffer system, a system where the locality attaches a cash amount to lots on land that has been rezoned to residential since about 1989 in Chesterfield. The cash has to be paid to the county before a building permit is issued. This cost ,of course is passed on to the homeowner, which increases the cost of their new home.Sen. Watkins is proposing an impact fee that would replace the cash proffer. This fee would be lower than the proffer but would apply to all new homes regardless of whether or not the subdivision had a cash proffer imposed on the land when it was rezoned. Sen. Watkins does a good job of illustrating how the impact fee if it had been in effect would have brought in more money to the county and been a more fair tax rather than taxing people in select areas of the county.
I did not think Mr. Gecker and Mr. Warren's argument for the cash proffer was as compelling.They basically said that the current system is fine because each case is different. I would agree that each case is different so why are they using a one size fits all system such as the cash proffer system and targeting homeowners who at some point in the future will move to specific subdivisions in the county?
The way I see it is that it is easier to tax future homeowners in the name of slowing growth rather than face the current constituents and raise taxes when and where needed and to cut spending . It is kind of like the progressive income tax scale where a few are taxed the most to benefit a larger number of citizens who pay less.The politician gets more people on his side that way.
What Sen. Watkins is proposing is a more fair and equitable tax and benefits the county more than the cash proffer system. It still is a tax on the new homeowner but it is more fair in that it is not specific to any location, is much less burdensome, inflates the values of properties less,and makes housing more affordable.
What it doesn't do is give the politicians as much power as they have over land owners and developers and forces them to be more accountable and responsible to every citizen.