Development fees impact 271,000 citizens without their input

The evil deeds occurring at our county government need to be exposed.

We may not change the course of our nation, or our state, but we can control what happens in our own county; and that my fellow citizens, is a start.

But, in my haste I have jumped over the story, please read on.

I decided to build a house in the county, either to sell or rent. I have built two other houses in Pinal County; one of them is my home. The permitting fees were approximately $1,200 to $1,500 each; this was acceptable.

Upon calling county Planning and Development, I was informed of a new “impact” fee that is approximately $8,500 per new home. I asked when this rule came into effect and who voted it in. The response was “the County Supervisors voted for it.”

In short, it amounts to a $10,000 tax for each new home when one combines the new impact fee and the plan review fees.

Some of you are thinking this doesn’t affect you. You already own your home; let the new homeowners absorb the costs for roads, policemen and open spaces.

That logic leads down a dangerous path. These three gentlemen made a law that affects the entire county financially, and did not put it up to a vote by the people. By the way, it was unanimous, so none of the three are innocent.

Sure, you may not disagree in principle with this particular decision, but what if these same three men decide that everybody in the county should pay a fee for an existing house, or when a house is sold?

The point is, did you vote on this, did you even know it was happening? No, you are probably like me, you don’t spend Sunday morning reading the fine print notices in the back of the newspaper. These men are setting policy and turning it into law that we must live with and we don’t even know it is happening.

Some of you are thinking, well this is OK, it will prevent more homes, and I’m tired of the traffic. Please, stop for a moment and consider the underlying principle, this is not about whether we should have more development, or even about this particular fee.

The essence of the issue is: do we allow three men sitting in a room in Casa Grande to dictate to an entire county its financial policy?

If you build a small home for $100,000 the entire rent proceeds from the first year must be paid to the government of this county before construction.

Let me state that in a simpler way. On a new rental home built for less than $100,000, based on a 10 percent return, the county government collects the profit from the first 10 years before you are able to start construction.

Ask yourself; does a tax that takes the first 10 years of profit from a new rental home sound reasonable and fair? Does a tax that taxes a 1,200-square-foot home equally with a 10,000- square-foot mansion sound fair? Does a tax that equalizes a home in town with fire, police, water, and sewer services, with a home in the country seem fair?

A personal aside here, we paid $31,500 dollars to have a well drilled, we paid $5,000 dollars to put in a septic system, we drive down one mile of washboard dirt road twice every day. Do you understand our frustration at being charged a fee for “services” from the county?

Is a new tax that was never voted on even legal?

So we made the decision not to build a rental home. In fact, we will put the property on the market at a reduced price and take our money somewhere else to build.

Now if you are so short-sighted that you think this is OK because it doesn’t affect you, then you have entirely missed the point, but, maybe now you will see how this starts to affect you. The real estate market is already depressed. If we sell land at a cheap price that worsens the situation.

What happens when you want to sell your home? Or even if you want to stay and refinance it, but the value has been driven down?

What if these three men decide that every time a home changes hands they are going to assess a fee?

The point is if we as citizens do not control the power granted to our leaders, they are our masters instead of our servants.

The proper method for increasing tax revenue is to mold the county into an area where people and businesses want to live and operate. The exodus of big business from California due to unfavorable tax and regulation creates a fine example.

So I went to meet David Snider, the Pinal County Supervisor for our area. I asked him all these questions and he had no satisfactory answers although he had plenty to say. Have you ever seen a politician who didn’t have something to say?

He offered plenty of senseless statistics that sound good if you don’t ask the hard questions. He almost convinced me that he had lowered real estate taxes until I asked a few pointed questions.

Snider can’t explain what benefit I will receive from the $8,500 dollar impact fee; in fact he hesitantly admitted that in my case it appeared I was not getting much at all.

But that didn’t keep him and the other two county supervisors from making this into a law. Even though for the rural population of this county of 271,000 citizens, it is essentially a tax for no service.

I say, enough. All three of these lawmakers are up for election in November. Throw them out of office. Elect three individuals who will better serve the county.

Do not let this become a party issue, it has nothing to do with left or right, Democrat or Republican. It has to do with right and wrong, and the abuse of powers granted. Three county supervisors should not be making fiscal policy to be crammed down the throat of 271,000 county citizens without so much as a vote.

Take the time to let your supervisor know how disgusted you are with this behavior, either call or write your representative an email, let them know how you feel.

Take time to vote these men out. Men who think like this and make law without regard to, or input from, the citizens; are dangerous to the very freedoms this country was based upon.

Furthermore, please keep in mind the point; it is not the fee at issue here.

Right, wrong or indifferent, law should not come into effect without the citizens’ knowledge. If you don’t think this is a law, try to build a house without a permit.

Jess Nelson is a construction manager with a mechanical engineering degree and has lived in the Hidden Valley area of Maricopa since late 2003.