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This may be naive, but shifting the cost towards families doesn't immediately mean that it must be privatized. Can you not achieve the same goal, making it cle

This may be naive, but shifting the cost towards families doesn't immediately mean that it must be privatized. Can you not achieve the same goal, making it clear that if your house in a specific area requires higher sewer and infrastructure costs, through something like property taxes? This way you don't get the problems of a HOA?

doktorhladnjak 4y ago
Many states have limitations on property taxes. That’s the lesser told reason why there has been such a push to privatization. It’s a direct consequence of the “tax revolt” that started in the 1970s.
emodendroket 4y ago
Well for instance in California this is literally impossible since the law mandates that property taxes fall in real dollars in perpetuity.
- jjav 4y ago
  > Well for instance in California this is literally impossible since the law mandates that property taxes fall in real dollars in perpetuity. No, this is not true. You're thinking of Prop 13 which limits the increase in the assessed value of the home to 2% per year. That is true. However, property taxes are the sum of the taxes resulting from that assessment, plus, additional local fees for all kinds of reasons. Shared maintenance of local areas is one such fee. Where I live (in California) there is no HOA (thankfully), but the parks and trails within the neighborhood are maintained by the city from funds collected in our property taxes as a distinct line item. These fees can and do go up, they are not constrained by Prop 13 limitations since they have nothing to do with the assessed value of the home. It's a wonderful system and completely debunks the arguments for needing a HOA.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    I’ve seen this done with Mello-Roos taxes, which usually have an expiration date and have to be set when the neighborhood is built. Otherwise I’m not aware of how it can be done.
    - jjav 4y ago
      They can tack on fees for specific purposes to the property tax. I haven't looked into the specific procedure the county & city uses to add them. For example here we used to pay for sewer maintenance as part of the water bill. Then they decided to move sewer taxes to be part of the property tax and so it became. (Cynically, they did it to raise water rates without attracting too much attention. The sewer fee was moved to property taxes but the water rates rose so that the water bill was about the same even though sewer was no longer in the monthly bill.)

doktorhladnjak 4y ago

Many states have limitations on property taxes. That’s the lesser told reason why there has been such a push to privatization. It’s a direct consequence of the “tax revolt” that started in the 1970s.

emodendroket 4y ago

Well for instance in California this is literally impossible since the law mandates that property taxes fall in real dollars in perpetuity.

jjav 4y ago
> Well for instance in California this is literally impossible since the law mandates that property taxes fall in real dollars in perpetuity. No, this is not true. You're thinking of Prop 13 which limits the increase in the assessed value of the home to 2% per year. That is true. However, property taxes are the sum of the taxes resulting from that assessment, plus, additional local fees for all kinds of reasons. Shared maintenance of local areas is one such fee. Where I live (in California) there is no HOA (thankfully), but the parks and trails within the neighborhood are maintained by the city from funds collected in our property taxes as a distinct line item. These fees can and do go up, they are not constrained by Prop 13 limitations since they have nothing to do with the assessed value of the home. It's a wonderful system and completely debunks the arguments for needing a HOA.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  I’ve seen this done with Mello-Roos taxes, which usually have an expiration date and have to be set when the neighborhood is built. Otherwise I’m not aware of how it can be done.
  - jjav 4y ago
    They can tack on fees for specific purposes to the property tax. I haven't looked into the specific procedure the county & city uses to add them. For example here we used to pay for sewer maintenance as part of the water bill. Then they decided to move sewer taxes to be part of the property tax and so it became. (Cynically, they did it to raise water rates without attracting too much attention. The sewer fee was moved to property taxes but the water rates rose so that the water bill was about the same even though sewer was no longer in the monthly bill.)