6 ms·

Under existing rules, developers do not pay enough fees to allow the School Districts to build new schools to support the new housing. Now you'd like to rubber

Under existing rules, developers do not pay enough fees to allow the School Districts to build new schools to support the new housing. Now you'd like to rubber stamp this? For example there's a new development in Fremont of a few hundred houses: the school district had to zone it as "we'll provide school for you, but it'll be wherever we have space across the entire city." That's not good. To me the idiocy is this: the state government mandates that all cities build new housing. But they don't mandate that housing and jobs balance. A city like Fremont was master-planned with enough space for both, but is being forced by the state to build houses instead for people who will work in Sunnyvale which has too many jobs and not enough houses.

tomcam 9y ago
Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?
- muninn_ 9y ago
  I think what they are talking about is the resident who will move in that need schools (and will pay property tax), not the developers. He developers can't build the residencies without having enough schooling for families moving in.
- pfooti 9y ago
  Thanks to the vagaries of prop 13, schools (and other municipal services) tend to get a lot better-funded from commercial real estate than housing. So we see cities prioritizing office space and not building enough housing to hold the people who will be working in those cities. It's pretty ridiculous.
- panzagl 9y ago
  Property taxes pay for the schools that already exist. It's hard for a district to 'save up' because, well California, and 'surplus' money should be returned to the taxpayer. If developers don't cover the cost a district usually issues a bond but that's hard because, well, California, and direct democracy rarely votes to raise property tax mil rates whatever it would cost to cover the bond. And doesn't California basically freeze assessment values? Because why should the people who already live there pay for services for newcomers? It's all very hostile and backward.
  - tomcam 9y ago
    Where does it say that property taxes pay for schools that already exist? I have never seen that mentioned on any of my $22K/year property tax documents.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    A state shouldn't need a per-value increase in taxes to cover anything that scales with the number of residents, which would include schools; the additional revenue from the new residents should cover that. (Unless they've utterly failed at economies of scale, but that should not need repeated fixes.) The cost of accommodating growth for new capacity should be factored into the ongoing existing costs. The people already there aren't paying for it; the new people in the new development are. The hostility is built up of years of expecting each new increase to be the last, and yet continuing to receive urgent demands for more, all with the plaintive "for our schools and our children" exhortations that try to suggest only an absolute monster would dare to say "enough".
    - wbl 9y ago
      I would suggest you never move to California. You will learn just how badly an entitled generation can behave.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- distances 9y ago
  Forgive my ignorance, but are taxes really earmarked in the US? As far as I understand, in most of Europe the government and municipality just collect their dues and spend according to an approved budget with no earmarking whatsoever.
  - azernik 9y ago
    They really are. At least in California. One of many ways in which local government here is fucked up.
    - djrogers 9y ago
      Common misconception- usually what happens is we are promised that funds from a new tax will be earmarked for something, then it winds up going in to the general fund, or spent somewhere else. Taxpayers have a real blind spot to the whole 'money is fungible' concept.
      - deathanatos 9y ago
        This isn't a misconception in California; the literal text of the law in some circumstances effectively earmarks funds. For example, take the first proposition from the last election — which happens to be about schools — Prop 51 from the November 2016 general election: > A fund is hereby established in the State Treasury, to be known as the 2016 State School Facilities Fund > no disbursement shall be made from any funds required by law to be transferred to the General Fund. > Bonds in the total amount of nine billion dollars ($9,000,000,000) […] may be issued and sold for the purposes set forth… (This proposition was approved by the voters.)
        michaelt 9y ago
        Right, but if you were paying schools $x from the general fund, then a special law gives them an extra $y, you can reduce the payment from the general fund by $y. Thus the schools are receiving the $y, just as promised. Only they aren't any better off, and the general fund has an extra $y in it now.
- thejteam 9y ago
  Where I live the developer has to pay an "impact fee" per unit as part of the permitting process that is supposed to offset the cost of road and school construction. Right now it is about 4500 for a single family home (in semi-rural Maryland).
- makomk 9y ago
  Property taxes pay to run the schools, barely. The obvious problem with paying for building new schools from property taxes is that it gives every single existing resident a financial incentive to block new development: they have to pay for all the supporting infrastructure, whilst all of the financial benefits go to the property developers. If there's no provision that says otherwise, they'd probably even have to pay to buy the land for the schools off the property developers.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
  In California, under the Prop 13 tax reform, property tax values were rolled back and frozen at the 1976 assessed value level and only allowed to raise at 2% per year. Property values (and therefore property tax receipts) vary relatively modestly with the economic cycle, but income tax receipts are fully exposed to the booms and busts of the stock market. What this leads to is school funding that is somewhat directly tied to the financial markets :( So if you're in school during a recession, it sucks
  - coredog64 9y ago
    Prop13 values reset on a sale. So the geriatric couple living in a million dollar cracker box might have low property taxes, but the next owner is in for a surprise.
jacobn 9y ago
That there's not a balanced zoning requirement (housing, jobs, services) seems to me as a lay person to be really weird. I'm sure there's a ton of good-sounding legal reasons for it, but seriously?!
sjg007 9y ago
It's a 30min commute and if Bart extends not a big deal. Also people move.
ChefDenominator 9y ago
This situation exists only because Sunnyvale has been blessed with a soil that is better for growing jobs.
surrealize 9y ago
> A city like Fremont was master-planned with enough space for both, but is being forced by the state to build houses instead for people who will work in Sunnyvale which has too many jobs and not enough houses. The legislation discussed in the article is largely about making Sunnyvale (and the rest of the job-heavy housing-light peninsula cities) build more housing.

tomcam 9y ago

Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?

muninn_ 9y ago
I think what they are talking about is the resident who will move in that need schools (and will pay property tax), not the developers. He developers can't build the residencies without having enough schooling for families moving in.
pfooti 9y ago
Thanks to the vagaries of prop 13, schools (and other municipal services) tend to get a lot better-funded from commercial real estate than housing. So we see cities prioritizing office space and not building enough housing to hold the people who will be working in those cities. It's pretty ridiculous.
panzagl 9y ago
Property taxes pay for the schools that already exist. It's hard for a district to 'save up' because, well California, and 'surplus' money should be returned to the taxpayer. If developers don't cover the cost a district usually issues a bond but that's hard because, well, California, and direct democracy rarely votes to raise property tax mil rates whatever it would cost to cover the bond. And doesn't California basically freeze assessment values? Because why should the people who already live there pay for services for newcomers? It's all very hostile and backward.
- tomcam 9y ago
  Where does it say that property taxes pay for schools that already exist? I have never seen that mentioned on any of my $22K/year property tax documents.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  A state shouldn't need a per-value increase in taxes to cover anything that scales with the number of residents, which would include schools; the additional revenue from the new residents should cover that. (Unless they've utterly failed at economies of scale, but that should not need repeated fixes.) The cost of accommodating growth for new capacity should be factored into the ongoing existing costs. The people already there aren't paying for it; the new people in the new development are. The hostility is built up of years of expecting each new increase to be the last, and yet continuing to receive urgent demands for more, all with the plaintive "for our schools and our children" exhortations that try to suggest only an absolute monster would dare to say "enough".
  - wbl 9y ago
    I would suggest you never move to California. You will learn just how badly an entitled generation can behave.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
distances 9y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but are taxes really earmarked in the US? As far as I understand, in most of Europe the government and municipality just collect their dues and spend according to an approved budget with no earmarking whatsoever.
- azernik 9y ago
  They really are. At least in California. One of many ways in which local government here is fucked up.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    Common misconception- usually what happens is we are promised that funds from a new tax will be earmarked for something, then it winds up going in to the general fund, or spent somewhere else. Taxpayers have a real blind spot to the whole 'money is fungible' concept.
    - deathanatos 9y ago
      This isn't a misconception in California; the literal text of the law in some circumstances effectively earmarks funds. For example, take the first proposition from the last election — which happens to be about schools — Prop 51 from the November 2016 general election: > A fund is hereby established in the State Treasury, to be known as the 2016 State School Facilities Fund > no disbursement shall be made from any funds required by law to be transferred to the General Fund. > Bonds in the total amount of nine billion dollars ($9,000,000,000) […] may be issued and sold for the purposes set forth… (This proposition was approved by the voters.)
      - michaelt 9y ago
        Right, but if you were paying schools $x from the general fund, then a special law gives them an extra $y, you can reduce the payment from the general fund by $y. Thus the schools are receiving the $y, just as promised. Only they aren't any better off, and the general fund has an extra $y in it now.
thejteam 9y ago
Where I live the developer has to pay an "impact fee" per unit as part of the permitting process that is supposed to offset the cost of road and school construction. Right now it is about 4500 for a single family home (in semi-rural Maryland).
makomk 9y ago
Property taxes pay to run the schools, barely. The obvious problem with paying for building new schools from property taxes is that it gives every single existing resident a financial incentive to block new development: they have to pay for all the supporting infrastructure, whilst all of the financial benefits go to the property developers. If there's no provision that says otherwise, they'd probably even have to pay to buy the land for the schools off the property developers.
FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
In California, under the Prop 13 tax reform, property tax values were rolled back and frozen at the 1976 assessed value level and only allowed to raise at 2% per year. Property values (and therefore property tax receipts) vary relatively modestly with the economic cycle, but income tax receipts are fully exposed to the booms and busts of the stock market. What this leads to is school funding that is somewhat directly tied to the financial markets :( So if you're in school during a recession, it sucks
- coredog64 9y ago
  Prop13 values reset on a sale. So the geriatric couple living in a million dollar cracker box might have low property taxes, but the next owner is in for a surprise.

jacobn 9y ago

That there's not a balanced zoning requirement (housing, jobs, services) seems to me as a lay person to be really weird. I'm sure there's a ton of good-sounding legal reasons for it, but seriously?!

sjg007 9y ago

It's a 30min commute and if Bart extends not a big deal. Also people move.

ChefDenominator 9y ago

This situation exists only because Sunnyvale has been blessed with a soil that is better for growing jobs.

surrealize 9y ago

> A city like Fremont was master-planned with enough space for both, but is being forced by the state to build houses instead for people who will work in Sunnyvale which has too many jobs and not enough houses. The legislation discussed in the article is largely about making Sunnyvale (and the rest of the job-heavy housing-light peninsula cities) build more housing.