Onondaga County lost 5,785 acres of farmland between 2002 and 2007, and 1,300 acres of forests were lost to development between 1992 and 2006. All the while, the county’s population growth has remained flat, so the same number of people have to pay to maintain a growing amount of public infrastructure such as roads, sewers and water lines.Same population + more infrastructure = higher taxes and fees
What is so difficult to understand?
Onondaga County has recognized this problem since the late 90's and at least tried to deal with it, albeit not effectively.
Oneida County government does not even know that it has a problem. It not only has done zilch to control sprawl -- it subsidizes it with PILOTS, allowing illegal sewer hookups, expanding the traffic capacity of county roads in suburban towns, giving tax breaks for suburban development, etc. etc. And property taxes and fees in general go up and up.
I'm not sure that Ms. Mahoney's proposal for Onondaga County is right for Oneida County.... but can Oneida County at least stop the things it does which support sprawl?
4 comments:
I don't understand your concerns. Nobody is building in Oneida County and there is no sprawl that I can see. Maybe in the past, but now?
Lowes in N H, Consumer Sq. is sprawl. So is NH Business Park.
Consumer square really wasn't sprawl, being located proximate to a shopping mall, but I agree that Lowes and the business park were, and also extremely unsuccessful. We just don't have the population growth or need for additional sprawl. Nothing happens here and the one thing that could lead to sprawl - the chip plant, well that is just a dream that will keep giving until Dimeo and Reynolds retire. No sprawl there. I just don't see it being a problem in the Mohawk Valley.
I think you might be confusing sprawl with growth. There clearly is/has been no growth ... but sprawl has been rampant for 30 years.
There is a large townhouse development in Clarks Mills ... That is sprawl, subsidized with a special tax break from the county.
A different kind sprawl is the OC Airport ... It was difficult enough to keep the Old OC Airport in flights, but it was well maintained and of an appropriate size for our population. Now we have runways to maintain that even metro areas of a million don't have.
Sprawl is part of the reason why taxes here are so much higher than other parts of the country ... which will keep jobs from ever coming here.
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