Developer Welfare

Okay College Station, what do you love more, low taxes or developers? Last week in a five to two vote The P&Z commission decided to recommend to City Council that developers should win. This has to do with water and waste impact fees, which I will try to explain. But If that is too much information, just know that if Council goes along with P&Z, you will help subsidize new development. This is not because developers don’t make a good profit, or because development will stop if we do not subsidize it (though many developers will try to make this silly claim.) I encourage you to contact City Council and ask them not to make you to pay the developers bills.

Mayor, Nancy Berry: nberry@cstx.gov
Mayor Pro Tem, John Crompton: jcrompton@cstx.gov
City Council Place 2, Jess Fields: jfields@cstx.gov
City Council Place 3, Dennis Maloney: dmaloney@cstx.gov
City Council Place 4, Katy-Marie Lyles: klyles@cstx.gov
City Council Place 4, Jana McMillan: jmcmillan@cstx.gov
City Council Place 5, Dave Ruesink: druesink@cstx.gov

Impact fees are fees assessed to help pay for the infrastructure cost of new development. Without these fees, this cost will be passed on to all rate payers in College Station even though you have long sense paid for the infrastructure necessary for where you live.

In fact, even if these fees were assessed at the highest legal limit, you will still pay for part of this new infrastructure because state law does not allow us to collect the full cost of putting these facilities in place. There seems to be three main arguments that developers have for getting us to pay their bills.

The first argument that developers make is that the increased taxes that will be collected on these developments will more than pay for this added infrastructure burden. The developers seem to be taking more than full credit for this growth, as if their developments are what is bringing new folks to town. Economic development is created by a multitude of factors, not the least of which is a well run city with an equitable fee structure. Developers do not create a need, they fill it. One of the leading factors stimulating growth is quality of life. Yet the development community would have us divert funds from providing things like parks to helping pay for their developments. They claim that if we subsidize the costs incurred by their businesses that they in turn will provide cheap house driving the market. I don’t know about you but wealthy developers are not my idea of who should be getting welfare. But the recommendation going forward to Council from P&Z is that we provide this welfare for developers.

Developers complain that they have been burdened with too many expenses. All of these expenses such as parkland dedication and impact fees are the cost of doing business. For much of College Station’s history developers have gotten away without paying these costs. Rather than being grateful for this past gift, they now angrily claim entitlement.

Related to this claim is the fear that all development will move to Bryan. The number one thing driving home sales in College Station is our high performing school district. People are willing to pay more for a home in order to be in CSISD. I know families that own a second home in College Station, just so that their kids can go to school here. Another thing that makes College Station a desirable place to live is our parks system. But the developers would have us reduce the money that we put into the operation and management of our parks so that we can better subsidize their businesses.

P&Z validated the findings of the consultant that helped assess the maximum allowable water/waste water impact fees of over $3,000 per standard meter and then recommended that we assess those fees at $0.00. In other words, they in essence said, “Yep, that’s what it cost to put these developments in, but we are going to charge that cost to all of the citizens of College Station rather than the developers who are profiting form the new growth.” Go figure.

Developers have been very successful at getting us to help fund their businesses because they are vigilant lobbyists. But we have seen that the voice of just a few citizens can also be very affective. Please take the time to let your City Council know that you do not want them to make you pay to subsidize the profits of wealthy developers. It is far more effective to show up at the City Council meeting to look them in the eyes and be heard, but an email allows your voice to be heard too.

Mayor, Nancy Berry: nberry@cstx.gov
Mayor Pro Tem, John Crompton: jcrompton@cstx.gov
City Council Place 2, Jess Fields: jfields@cstx.gov
City Council Place 3, Dennis Maloney: dmaloney@cstx.gov
City Council Place 4, Katy-Marie Lyles: klyles@cstx.gov
City Council Place 4, Jana McMillan: jmcmillan@cstx.gov
City Council Place 5, Dave Ruesink: druesink@cstx.gov