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Views from Gallatin: May 2005

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Tuesday, May 24, 2005. Lessons From Our Neighbors. This portrait from Arlington is a familiar one to many school districts that have been forced to absorb rapidly rising enrollments caused by widespread housing development that swept through much of Dutchess County and the mid-Hudson Valley in the 1990s. Beyond the stress and overcrowding in the classrooms, the financial cost of accommodating such a large influx of new students would, in five years time, increase the current annual school levy to existin...

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Views from Gallatin: July 2005

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Tuesday, July 19, 2005. The Pace of Growth. With land use regulations under review in dozens of Hudson Valley towns, citizens and local officials find themselves grappling with one of the major shortcomings of traditional zoning codes: while the codes specify lot sizes and permitted uses for different areas of a town, they offer little guidance on planning the pace of growth. Some towns have met the threat of too rapid growth by imposing a limit on the number of building permits they will approve in a gi...

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Views from Gallatin: October 2005

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Thursday, October 13, 2005. A Promising Pledge for the Campaign Season. As election campaigns kick off this month for some 100 open town board seats in our region, most candidates agree that preserving farmland and providing affordable housing are among the issues foremost on voters’ minds, but few, if any, have offered specific proposals to finance these popular though costly initiatives. It is definitely among the options the Ghent Town Board should be pursuing, said John Mesevage, Democratic candidate...

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Views from Gallatin: March 2005

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005. As more and more towns in our region consider zoning revisions, building moratoriums and other steps to address the onslaught of large-scale development, one underlying question rises to the surface again and again: exactly how much. Be done to prevent the suburban sprawl and skyrocketing property taxes that typically come with rapid growth? The answer seems to be: quite a lot, certainly much more than many planners and politicians would like us to believe. Are required by law.

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Views from Gallatin: August 2005

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Friday, August 26, 2005. Dear Mr. Durst. New York, NY 10036. Dear Mr. Durst,. What my readers are asking is Why? Such a fortune would be hard to resist for most of us. But for a man whose Manhattan real estate holdings are already worth over $2 billion, according to published estimates, you might excuse those who wonder if monetary rewards alone are sufficient to drive your interest in such a contested project. Environmental values are important to me in everything I do, you said last year, explaining wh...

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Views from Gallatin: February 2005

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Tuesday, February 15, 2005. The real estate boom that has brought jobs and prosperity to the towns of Columbia and northern Dutchess counties over the past five years has also claimed a serious economic casualty: an increasing number of employed and retired residents are unable to afford homes of their own. The use of transfer taxes to fund affordable housing was pioneered by Vermont, which for 17 years has dedicated a portion of its statewide transfer tax receipts to subsidized housing projects and land...

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Views from Gallatin: January 2005

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Friday, January 14, 2005. Once Upon A Time. Once upon a time, in a quiet storybook town very much like our own, citizens awoke one morning to a shock: seemingly overnight, the town’s population had doubled, everyone’s property tax bills had tripled, school classrooms were jammed to capacity, and many long-time residents could not afford to buy or rent a home anywhere in town. Town and school officials have voiced concern over possible tax increases, but they have deferred taking any action until they rec...

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Views from Gallatin: November 2004

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Tuesday, November 30, 2004. It’s Cheaper to Keep Her. Red Hook voters last year approved a novel land preservation program one which is only starting to draw planners’ attention in Columbia County to address a disturbing economic fact about housing development: on average, a new house costs the surrounding school district about $5,000 more each year than it contributes in new property taxes. As the issues of preserving open space and restraining runaway property taxes take center stage in the debate abou...

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Views from Gallatin: November 2005

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005. The Real Problems With Reassessments - Part One. The growing outcry over rising property tax assessments now grabbing headlines in many Hudson Valley towns highlights the financial complexities and political controversies involved in achieving one of the most basic principles of municipal government: equitable taxation. A reassessment is not a tax increase. In our region, it is usually large tracts of open land and expensive, recently improved houses that see the highest relat...