Posts Tagged ‘Karen Uhlich’

Are you for “open space” laws forbidding building and also for “affordable housing”? Don’t be discouraged by the fact that severe building restrictions have sent housing prices sky-rocketing in community after community.

It may be impossible to have “open space” laws and “affordable housing” at the same time, but what are politicians there for, except to figure out ways to give us the impossible?

Palo Alto, California, where housing prices nearly quadrupled in one decade after severe building restrictions were imposed, also pioneered in laws mandating that each builder agree to sell a certain percentage of any new housing “below market.”

In other words, they combined “open space” laws with “affordable housing.” Who says the impossible cannot be achieved?

Of course this system can work only where just a fraction of the new housing is sold “below market.” Moreover, the market price of housing is raised so far above what it was by building restrictions that even “below market” prices for condominiums in Palo Alto can run to $300,000 or $400,000.

This is hardly “affordable housing” for people on modest incomes. Only 7 percent of Palo Alto’s police, for example, live in Palo Alto– probably older cops who bought their homes long ago.

But none of that matters politically. What matters is that people in Palo Alto can feel good about themselves, by being for both “open space” and “affordable housing.” Happy voters are what get politicians re-elected.

From Thomas Sowell of TownHall.com – Read the full post HERE.

Now the brilliant politicians that run our community demand open space, restrict infill developments in their back yards and still try to find ways to tax housing to set up an ‘affordable housing’ fund for those less fortunate. News flash, more people will need affordable housing based on policies that this community’s elected officials are enacting. What’s the definition of insanity again?

Tucson may charge fee on new home sales

Rob O’Dell

Arizona Daily Star

September 28, 2008

Many new homes in Tucson could come with a 1 percent transfer fee assessed on their sale under a proposal now being pushed by City Council members.

The idea faces strong opposition from real estate and development interests, who are being rocked by one of the worst housing markets in decades due to the mortgage industry collapse. They say the fee would take money from either the home buyer or seller, making housing less affordable.

The new fee, recommended for approval by a council subcommittee on Sept. 15, would apply to any house or condominium unit where a builder has entered into a development agreement with the city.

Money from the fee — equal to $2,000 on a $200,000 home — would go to the city’s housing trust fund, used to pay for such things as home repairs and down-payment assistance for low-income residents.

The fee for the first sale from the developer to the original buyer would be one-half percent, but it would increase to a full 1 percent for any subsequent sale in perpetuity. It would be enforced through a deed restriction attached to the home.

Development agreements are contracts between the city and a developer to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, beyond a standard rezoning.

The agreements often are used to collaborate on parking, for pre-annexation agreements, or when the city sells public land, City Attorney Mike Rankin said. Developers and the city also make agreements to share the cost of building roads or other infrastructure.

The push for the 1 percent transfer fee by Councilwomen Regina Romero and Karin Uhlich already threatened to derail one development, a proposal to convert apartments to condominiums Downtown.

Romero and Uhlich voted on Sept. 15 in the Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee to recommend that the full council consider the fee, which could happen as soon as late October. Councilman Rodney Glassman, the third member of the panel, was absent.

Although the idea still hadn’t been presented to the full council, on Sept. 16 Romero proposed attaching a transfer fee to a development agreement with Ross Rulney for his Flats at Julian Drew project, converting apartments into 53 condominiums in a 91-year-old Downtown building.

Romero said she wanted to talk about a “voluntary” 1 percent transfer fee, but Rulney balked, saying he didn’t want to saddle his potential residents with the fee. With Mayor Bob Walkup absent and the City Council split on what to do, the decision was put off for a week.

Romero subsequently agreed to drop the issue for Rulney’s project, which was approved unanimously by the council last week.

Since then, Uhlich and Romero have dialed back their push for the transfer fee, saying it is one item on a “menu” of options that should be considered to help fund affordable housing in Tucson.

Romero said the idea was proposed by the board of the affordable-housing trust fund after developer Jerry Dixon, of the Gadsden Co., agreed to the 1 percent transfer fee in a recent development agreement for a mixed-use development on the West Side.

“We think it’s a good idea for the council as a whole to hear about it,” Romero said.

Uhlich said she will withhold judgment on the transfer fee until it is considered by the whole council, but she said it merits consideration, especially if the city is giving concessions or incentives in the development agreement.

“It has enough validity to be considered,” Uhlich said. “I support giving it serious consideration as another tool for developers to address affordable housing with their projects.”

The transfer fee will face opposition from the Tucson Association of Realtors, said Colin Zimmerman, its director of public affairs.

“Now is not the time to stick another tax on a market that’s already shaky,” Zimmerman said.

That opinion was backed by Downtown resident Mike Sepich, a counselor who is interested in buying one of the Julian Drew block condos priced in the low to mid-$100,000s. “It’s pretty ironic to have a fee like that on the only affordable housing that’s proposed Downtown,” he said.

Zimmerman said the Realtors already support Proposition 100 on November’s ballot, which would ban a fee or tax on the sale of property by the state, counties, cities and towns.

He acknowledged that the proposition would not forbid Tucson’s new rules because the fee would be part of a deed restriction that city officials contend to be voluntary, although Zimmerman added that it’s not voluntary if you can’t get your project approved without it.

Rankin agreed that the state proposition would not prohibit the city’s transfer fee.

Corky Poster, a housing trust fund board member, said the housing fund needs a dedicated funding source to supplement the money it now gets from condo conversions and other smaller sources.

Since being created in 2006, the city’s housing trust fund has taken in $650,000 and has committed $385,000 for homeowner repairs, down-payment assistance and employer-assisted housing, said Community Services Director Emily Nottingham.

The idea behind the fee was to recapture some of the public money that helps get a project off the ground, Poster said.

“It recognizes the city contribution,” he said. “Developers think it’s a good idea because it doesn’t interfere with their first sale.”

However, Richard Studwell, a local developer who opposes the fee, said Tucson doesn’t have a track record of spending tax money wisely, given its much-criticized Rio Nuevo Downtown redevelopment effort.

“The fund … will have high administrative expenses, and it won’t accomplish anything,” Studwell said. “These are well-meaning people who can’t get it done.”

Tucson’s mayor and council didn’t respond to my Dec. 1 column on Republican State Senator-elect Jonathan Paton’s proposed law to require nonpartisan elections in all Arizona cities and towns.

But an Arizona Daily Star news story on the bill two weeks later showed most of our six Democratic councilmembers have been thinking about Paton’s idea for Tucson to join the rest of Arizona’s municipal governments, which already hold nonpartisan votes.

They don’t like it. Southside Councilman Steve Leal said Paton and others “want nonpartisan elections for partisan reasons.”

Partisanship was apparently all right earlier in Leal’s 19-year council career when he opposed annexations of urban areas immediately north or east of Tucson.

Democrats lead in city registrations, with independents second and Republicans third. Leal warned fellow Democrats that annexations in the foothills or the far eastside would strengthen Republican numbers in the city.

His registration argument hasn’t surfaced recently because hardly anyone to the north or east of the city limits wants to be governed by this mayor and council.

They’d rather spend August pulling a steamboat upstream in the sand of the “navigable” Santa Cruz River.

Nevertheless, switching to nonpartisan government might lead to the eventual annexation of some of our neighbors’ children or grandchildren.

Future generations might forget today’s countless council schemes to toughen city development regulations when no one can afford to develop anyway.

Democratic Council members Rodney Glassman of eastside Ward 2, Karin Uhlich of the north-central Ward 3 and Nina Trasoff of university-area’s Ward 6 told the Star they want city voters to approve any proposal to adopt nonpartisan elections.

“It is something city voters should decide rather than Phoenix dictating how we operate,” Uhlich said, suggesting the council could refer the idea to a citizens committee looking at city charter changes.

Oh boy! We all know how helpful city committees are in Tucson.

Where would our downtown be if we hadn’t referred Rio Nuevo, the Barraza-Aviation Parkway, a new convention center and the proposed Nimbus Brewery to committees and neighborhood groups?

Nevertheless, council Democrats are right when they say Tucson voters should decide on city charter amendments.

The charter says it very specifically, but that isn’t the issue. I doubt that Paton’s bill will mention our city at all.

It probably will say that all Arizona cities and towns, plus those that haven’t been incorporated or even thought of, must have nonpartisan elections. That’s a statewide issue and therefore a suitable topic for the legislature.

If Tucson’s Democratic council members and their allies lead a fight against that kind of bill, they will surely lose. The Arizona House and Senate are dominated by Republicans, most of whom represent Maricopa County.

And Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who will resign early next year to become the Obama administration’s director of Homeland Security, won’t be here to consider vetoing the bill.

Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer, who will succeed Napolitano, is already upset with Tucson Democrats whose vote-tabulating dispute with Pima County indirectly challenged her authority as Arizona’s chief election officer.

Brewer probably will sign Paton’s bill if the Legislature adopts it.

Nonpartisan elections would attract more business and professional candidates who have leadership skills and good, practical ideas for running a city.

Their campaigns probably would deal more with what’s best for Tucson, business growth and good-paying jobs and less with abortion, guns, the Iraq war, stopping growth near the Grand Canyon or plastic grocery bags.

For five decades, Tucsonans have elected a number of pleasant or well-meaning folks with little business or administrative experience, plus a few who may not have meant so well.

Given the shape of our city, it’s time to try something new.