| What Are Some of the Central Problems with Residential Growth? |
Our city's character. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that Louisville, with a current population of about 19,000, would be a very different city if its population were significantly larger. We know our neighbors; parents and children feel safe walking anywhere in this city; we see friends every day at the grocery stores, rec center, golf course and on the trails. In surveys, Louisville citizens have said overwhelmingly that they want this city to remain at about our current population. The last time citizens were asked, 92.6% said they wanted Louisville to be no larger than 20,000. Fiscal harm. It's a truism that housing doesn't pay for itself. That's especially true in Louisville, where our standard of living is high. We citizens receive more in services--roads, recreation, open space and so on--than we pay for in the form of sales taxes, the city's main revenue source. To maintain our standard of living, we rely on residents from other cities who shop in Louisville. If we have stores that sell goods and services nonresidents want, our city's budget remains healthy. But if we replace those stores with housing, we add more stress to our budget and our standard of living. This is especially true if we add housing to the outer fringes of the city, since those residents would shop outside the city. As Mayor Sisk reminded the pro-growth Council members in July, "I don't care what the statistics are—you lose money on building homes in this city." Louisville's Comp Plan consultant's fiscal analysis confirms this. At page 52 of the presentation (a PowerPoint page), the consultant concluded that if residential development over the next 20 years is limited to 1,000 units and the StorageTek property were re-zoned for additional retail—not housing—there would be both an operating surplus ($6-7 million) and a capital surplus ($3-4 million). This plan—eliminating housing from the StorageTek property—resulted in the highest operating surplus and capital surplus of any of the four plans considered. What fiscal factors should the city consider, and how should the city plan development so that it promotes and does not harm Louisville's fiscal health? Former Council member John Leary explained this in a July 20 email to the City Council. |
|
| Home | |