Platting Fees

Archived Posts from this Category

Wed 30 Dec 2009

Platting fees way under prediction and November sales way down from 2008

Posted by l3wis under Platting Fees, Sioux Falls, texas
No Comments

As you can see the city now is down -4.1% from last year. I suspect that number may rise a little in December because of Christmas sales, but not much.

taxes

And as you can see, taxpayers have put in over 8x more to the arterial road fund then developers have. I found out Monday why this is. Developers used a loophole in platting fee collection. They called their plats ‘Minor’ plats instead of ‘Major’ plats. There should be more about the platting fee story in the SF MSM over the weekend, keep your eyes peeled.

plat

 

Wed 11 Nov 2009

Is the City of Sioux Falls scrambling to fix a big freaking mess?

Posted by l3wis under Platting Fees, Sioux Falls
[5] Comments

subdivision-platting-layout

I have held off on this story for awhile, but I will give you a tidbit today, until I hear more. It was no mistake that platting fees came in way under projection this past year, but it’s not because of developers but because of the city. According to rumors I have heard the city started looking into the low numbers and discovered that developers found a loophole in the fee collection and the city just became aware of it recently, now the city is scrambling to fix it and the developers are not one bit too happy about it. I could give two-shits either way, my concern is since taxpayers were forced to pay their fair share by only one vote by our mayor we should either get a refund or put the money in a savings account until the platting fees catch up, or suspend the tax all together. We were duked into the tax increase by the city’s planning office and I don’t think it is fair that we pay a tax that was based on a lie.

More of this story to come. I’m assuming the City Council will have to vote on any changes and I guarantee their will be a shitstorm when that happens. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Tue 7 Jul 2009

Platting Fee interview 6 PM today – KELO TV

Posted by l3wis under Platting Fees, Sioux Falls, Taxes
[11] Comments

I got interviewed this morning about my feelings on the platting fees being so low in comparison to the taxes collected for arterial roads (see graphic below). I touched on many topics, but here’s a summary

- I think it is unfair to mandate retail taxpayers to pay an extra tax when the developers are not

- I thought it was pretty obvious the night the council approved the tax increase that we were going into a recession

- I think the tax increase was just a ploy to max out our taxes to what state law allows so that it will be easier for the SF Event Center Task force to ask for another tax increase next year from the legislature.

- I think arterial streets should be built on a DEMAND basis. If developers start moving dirt, we start moving dirt.

- I pointed out that councilors Knudson, Jamison, Litz and Brown all had their campaigns funded by the very special interests that supported this tax increase.

Obviously not all of this will make it into a 3 minute news spot. KELO also interviewed Theresa Stehly and they were planning on an interview with Craig Lloyd, the main developer who was pushing this tax increase. Mark Cotter, city planner, may also be interviewed.

I guess we are only in a recession when it is hurting the developer’s pocketbooks, not the rest of ours.

City of Sioux Falls