We were told a decade ago that when we increased our 2nd penny to a full penny (.092 to .100) that developers would kick in another 50-60% in platting fees to help build arterial roads. That never happened. In fact taxpayers have kicked in around 8 to 10x more (from the .08 increase) than developers have. It really doesn’t generate much at all. When you consider we spend well over $40 million a year on roads in Sioux Falls (it may even be higher than that) platting fees only kicked in around $2.4 million in 2017, most of which came from US in that tax increase.
But there are some that think developers are literally paying to build our arterial roads, they are not, they are contributing, but not paying 100%. That’s why I really don’t understand this statement;
Sioux Falls real estate developer Darrel Viereck was one of the early backers of platting fees a decade ago. Many developers didn’t want to pay the additional cost. But Viereck saw the city was poised for a building boom, despite the recession.
When in reality, developers are not really contributing much of anything to our roads fund. But they can keep telling that same old lie.
Makes you wonder if TenHaken’s new COS gently nudged Stormland TV to do this story, or if Darrel was just bitching about something again. Who knows?