Businesses, property taxes, land use, and economic development
Kevin Brancato links to a Washington Post article and notes the effect of a soak-the-businesses property tax policy on land use policy. This is the same soak-the-businesses tax policy I mentioned in relation to business location incentives. Actually, economic development is involved in this situation, too. From the article:
Attracting workers -- but not the homes for all of them to live in -- is not just official policy in Clarksburg and Montgomery County; it has increasingly become the practice across the region. Local governments believe this makes financial sense because workplaces pay more taxes and use fewer government services than homeowners do. And governments maintain this imbalance through zoning and other development controls.
The idea is to get the lucrative business development, but shove the cost of serving the associated residential development off on neighboring communities. Read the whole article. Fascinating.
UPDATE: The Washington Post article above is the first in a series of three. Read the second and third.
Posted by Chip on August 07, 2004 at 03:57 PMNIMBY [not-in-my-back-yard] is everywhere. My question is, does the firm have to somehow pay its employees more to compensate them for the long commutes?
Posted by: Rey at August 9, 2004 08:47 AM
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