Archive: Opinions

In presenting his proposal for a Lansing Town Center to the RFP Committee Developer David Taub said that a town center could generate a $1.5 million in taxes to the four town taxing authorities (town, school district, fire district and library) and additional county taxes as well.  On top of the tax benefit, a town center would provide varied housing and a commercial center that residents have indicated they want in a recent phone survey and during a study of creating a town center four years ago.

But it could all go down the toilet because of... you guessed it!  Sewer.

Over the years I have repeatedly heard from experts that even a small retail area would require a certain population threshold that can best be reached by planned density of housing.  It comes down to the notion that you need enough people to buy stuff or you won't get local retail businesses.  Even to someone like me who is admittedly not a savvy business person, that makes sense.  Not enough customers equals no stores.  Simple math.

And you want businesses, because they pay more than they receive in municipal services, while residential properties receive more in services than they pay.  To get that benefit you have to have the density of housing.  You can't have one without the other.

Local developers were stunned when the municipal sewer went down.  But they almost instantly rebounded with talk of building a local package plant (a small sewer treatment plant) and the infrastructure needed to use it.  But even if developers pay to build a plant and put all the pipes in the ground, someone needs to run the thing.  That someone has to be the municipality.

Developers come and go but municipalities are here for the long haul.  Even if developers were willing to maintain a sewer, it doesn't make any practical sense.  People who worry the Town would be responsible if the developers disappeared are right.  Doing it that way is setting ourselves up to fail.  The Town has to do it, but it can be done with very low risk.  I am not suggesting any cost to taxpayers.

People in water districts pay the water bill.  people in lighting districts pay the electricity bill.  And people in a sewer district pay for the treatment of their sewage.  This means that if the Town manages a small package plant that virtually no current landowners will be the ones paying for it.  The only current ones who might pay would be owners of nearby businesses like Lansing Market, XTra Mart or Crossroads Bar & Grill that want to hook up to it.  That is if they want to and if it has enough capacity for them.

Everyone else that pays are people who don't live here yet because the majority of the property such a plant would service is entirely undeveloped at this moment.

So the question is, will the town government agree to run it?  That would mean that a Department of Public Works (the Highway Department) would have to maintain the plant and replace sewer pipes as they age or break.  But the money would come entirely from the people using the plant.

That seems like a reasonable compromise to get all that new property tax revenue and to meet the desires of residents who have been saying for at least four years that they want a town center.  The notion that developers are the only ones who benefit from a town center is flawed.  Sure they benefit.  They wouldn't develop if they didn't.  But the future residents also benefit, and current residents certainly do in terms of new revenue relieving the currently high tax burden and in terms of having conveniences nearby that make life in the town easier and better.

The municipal sewer went down because people who would never get sewer rightly didn't want to pay for it, and people who would get sewer didn't want to pay as much as it would cost.  Taub's rough estimate of the annual cost of sewer service from a package plant was actually lower than that of the municipal project. 

But whatever it is this is not a case of imposing a new cost on existing residents.  It is a case of making the cost a part of what it means to buy a new home in Lansing.  People all over the country buy new homes that include sewer service.  If they buy homes in the town center the new revenue will benefit everyone in the town.

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