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Much to the dismay of many well-meaning people, the Colorado General Assembly failed to enact any growth-control legislation during this session just past. This legislative inaction has inspired petitions to put an initiative on the ballot.
No matter how the initiative is worded, it would mean new laws, new paperwork, new bureaucrats, and probably no control, since the People of Money can deploy attorneys and consultants who will arrange for compliance with the letter of the law while doing what they were going to do anyway.
Mother Nature may help this summer -- it's the third year of La Nina, which means hot, dry and windy. But nature is fickle, and we can't rely on drought and wildfire. Every so often, we'll get a wet year, and the growth problems will continue.
But there may be another approach. For starters, keep
in mind that there's a lively body of litigation underway
concerning takings.
That's from a provision of the
Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the federal
constitution: ... neither shall private property be
taken for public use, without just compensation.
Now, let's look at a study issued earlier this year in Colorado's own Custer County, the fifth-fastest growing county in America (if you don't know where it is, I'm not going to tell you, since it's obvious that too many people already know how to find it).
The study was prepared by Mark Haggerty, a geographer at
the University of Colorado, and it is called The Cost of
Community Services.
It examines local governmental
income and costs for three categories of property --
residential, commercial/industrial and agricultural/open
space.
The local governments -- county, town, school district, special district -- primarily get their revenues from property and sales taxes, from licenses and permits and fees, and from other governments (like gasoline tax money that the state collects and distributes to the county for its roads).
The local governments spend money on schools, law enforcement, roads, libraries and the like.
The Custer study found that for every dollar that its local governments collect from agricultural and open space, the governments spend 54 cents on services.
For every dollar collected from commercial and industrial uses, 71 cents is spent on governmental services.
But for every tax dollar collected from residential, local government spends $1.16.
The Custer study concluded that if residential growth continues there, then either tax rates will have to go up, or services will have to be reduced -- longer response times for law enforcement, larger classrooms, shorter library hours, roads not plowed immediately after blizzards, that sort of thing.
But for our purposes, note that residential growth is
subsidized by existing residents. That is, every time some
developer chops up a ranch, either your taxes go up
(obviously a takings,
straight out of your pocket)
or else your services go down.
That's also a takings,
though it's not as direct.
But if the library has fewer books and magazines, and you
have a literary addiction, then you'll have to buy more for
yourself, and that costs money.
If the schools get worse, you might have to quit your day job for home-schooling, and that could represent a financial loss. If the government can't maintain the road or street as well it used to, you may need a tough Spewt, and perhaps tire chains and a plow blade as well; again, more money out of your pocket. If your tap water deteriorates, you could be spending money on bottled water. If the sheriff's office can't answer calls promptly, your ammunition bill goes up, plus time spent on cleaning and target practice that could have gone to a profitable pursuit.
This could go on and on -- we rely on local governments to provide many services.
But the point should be clear by now -- residential
development, under Colorado's current tax structure, could
be construed to represent a takings,
either in the
form of higher taxes or your increased costs to provide
services that you once got from local government.
Now, all we need is for some public-spirited lawyer to
file a takings
suit of this nature. She might lose
in the end, but it would take years to grind through the
initial case and the appeals, and meanwhile, development
would be on hold throughout Colorado. That's worth
something, isn't it?
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