http://csbj.com/2010/04/03/city-has-one-powerful-weapon-to-enforce-growth-policy/ Sat, 18 May 2013 02:50:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://csbj.com/2010/04/03/city-has-one-powerful-weapon-to-enforce-growth-policy/comment-page-1/#comment-25457 Ira J Joseph Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:37:50 +0000 http://csbj.com/?p=26985#comment-25457 John,
Having worked on the comprehensive plan, I’ll readily admit that it does not synch with reality and actually has not ever since TABOR reduced property taxes and eliminated capital improvements tax funding, curtailing two basic fiscal tools most communities utilize. Annexations became a search for the next sales tax shot, but that never covered full costs of growth. However, I think the key impediment to using water as a growth management tool is the confusion of goals between the general city and CSU, at least partly attributable to TABOR and CSU’s designation as an enterprise. Utilities has never been seen as a growth management tool, but as a business that looks for new customers and more revenue. With huge bills for SDS, it’s only logical to look at all of that urban density development in El Paso County, which many think was approved without adequate long-term water supply. City and CSU staff worked off and on for close to 10 years on ways to permit other parties to participate in SDS (with their own water) to reduce SDS costs for city residents, and also to capture some “fee” or sales tax equivalent, as you’ve suggested. The idea was always seen as problematic, although much effort went into its evaluation. The real issue is that the earlier sensible approach of confining urban development to municipalities that can actually provide urban services (our regional growth policy) was torpedoed by all of that county development, which began the deterioration of the sales tax advantage the city had, which has brought us to the present. Now we are experiencing duplication of service needs in the county as it has to provide some urban level services, which by the way city residents also have to pay for. I’m in agreement on the desirability of using water as a growth management tool, but there is a hell of a big train wreck out there, and a lot of local officials haven’t figured that out yet.

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