Residents want to have a say in New Hartford park

[Ralph]

No such thing as a free lunch.

[strikeslip]

The more I think about the offer of "free" acreage to the school district, the more it looks like a deal already cooked up behind closed doors:

(1) The developer gives 17 Acres of landlocked land to the NHSD for "free" (costing the developer $??).

(2) The NHSD and others give a road to the developer for "free" (costing NHSD alone almost $2.9 million of PILOT if I'm reading slide 17 correctly).

Coincidence?

$171,000/acre?

The voter-rejected bus garage proposal looks like an incredible "bargain" compared to this transaction.

[Swimmy]

What I don't understand, Nhcitizen, is that the school will be using the money it will receive from the PILOT to pay for a road that has nothing to do with the school except in the manner you described. So aren't they using money they are receiving for school taxes to pay for a non-school related project that only recently included a 17-acre land transfer?

[nhcitizen18]

Swimmy,

In one sense you are right, but as I said before The Hartford would not have existed without the PILOT and therefore the land would not be contributing any taxes anyway. Whether the land stayed vacant or The Hartford is built there with a PILOT makes no difference since the net result on property taxes is still virtually 0 either way.

However in the long term, if the Hartford is still there after the 15 year PILOT is over, they will be fully integrated into the tax rolls and their taxes should reduce the amount of taxes paid by residential property owners.

I live in New Hartford and pay my fair share of taxes here I wouldn't want to see my money being spent frivolously. If our local leaders can encourage The Hartford's 700 jobs to stay in New Hartford (as opposed to moving out of the county) with a 0 impact on taxes I view that as a positive development.

[strikeslip]

NHC18 - The Hartford is secured by the PILOT agreement reducing its expenses through tax reduction. While I disagree with that approach, I suppose I can live with it because it retains jobs.

The part that I object to is that the taxing juristictions are going to take their shrunken payments and use them to widen a road to service the Business Park. That goes beyond securing "the Hartford" and becomes a subsidy to the developer for his other activities. He should be paying Fees In Lieu of Mitigation to make up for the Town having to widen the road.

[Swimmy]

Gotcha, thank you for breaking it down. I didn't think of it that way.

[clarencebunsen]

Happy Groundhog Day. My morning to be a contrarian.

One of the things that struck me when I first moved here (appraoching a quarter century, where does the time go) is that we expect developers to shoulder a much larger burden for the infrastructure costs that I saw elsewhere.

My home, immediately before I came here, was in a typical suburban development. A developer (or maybe more than one) had built hundreds of homes but the municipality had bonded for and built the roads & sewers & sidewalks (I miss sidewalks).

I love my home, my neighborhood and the area, but one thing I did notice after buying is that the infrastructure had been done on the cheap.

It's possible that one of the things that retards development in this area is that collectively we are not willing to invest in our own future.

[frankcor]

Why invest in our own future when we have local, state and federal politicians ready to jump in and invest for us? It's a win-win; we get the infrastructure, they get the photo-ops.

[nhcitizen18]

Clarence that is an excellent point. Maybe I've lived in NYS for too long because I never really thought of that. If improvements or additions to infrastructure need to be made why is that the responsibility of a developer?

If municipalities and business can collaborate on development isn't that the perfect formula for economic growth? Items like infrastructure and public education are investments in our future. Without them you cannot hope to advance a society.

A true focus on improving the local infrastructure might be the necessary first step for our economy to turn the corner. "If you build it business will come".

[Swimmy]

Clarence, I agree with you. Infrastructure should come from the municipality. Much like what is being done at the Marcy site to hopefully bring in a chip plant, if EDGE ever got its act together and started to listen to what others told them needed to be done. But I digress to another topic.

My concern is with the school district getting involved and using its payments for road improvements that are not directly related to the school's functions. But NHcitizen18 made some valid points that cleared up my concerns.

I'm convinced that in order to attract business and economic growth, the municipality needs to provide a solid infrastructure and keep development/start-up costs minimal to any potential developers and businesses. That's part of the reason we don't have a lot of business coming in, people expect those businesses to front the infrastructure bill.

Of course we all know the other part to attracting businesses is keeping their tax payments minimal.

[nhcitizen18]

Speaking of low taxes and a business friendly environment does anyone have a good link on the recent "Irish Revolution" in business development? I know they recently combined reduced taxes with some other icnentives that caused numerous multi-nationals to relocate there. From what I have read these changes have caused the Irish Per Capita GDP to skyrocket

www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

[frankcor]

I recall reading in Forbes magazine that Ireland enjoys one of the lowest Misery Indexes in the world -- it was one of the silly lists they always publish. You'll probably have to subscribe to read it on-line, though. I read it at the library (I'm not on any of their richest people lists so I don't pay for it ).

I know their corporate tax rate is low. They choose to export their unemployment by subsidizing businesses like that. (NY exports our corporations by subsidizing people who don't work) They also have relatively low income tax (compared to other European nations) and rely heavily on value added tax.