Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Commissioners in Miami-Dade County have proposed a new climate change levy on property developers who want to create new housing in “environmentally sensitive” areas.
Miami-Dade Could Ask Developers to Pay for Climate Change Costs
If you live in South Florida, you’ve probably come around to the idea of climate change and realized that, like it or not, sea levels are rising. But solutions to the problem are pricey, and there’s no clear consensus on how we’ll pay for the changes we need to continue living here.
Four Miami-Dade commissioners have suggested an idea so new it doesn’t appear any other city has implemented it: Create new “impact fees” that would require developers to basically pay for their portion of the burden of sea-level-rise-related costs.
“We have to be forward-thinking and open-minded about how we’re going to share responsibility for solving the challenge,” says Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, who along with Commissioners Juan C. Zapata, Rebeca Sosa, and Sally A. Heyman sponsored the item.
The proposal, which is on today’s agenda, asks the mayor to prepare a report on whether such fees would be appropriate. (It’s worth noting that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has said much of the discussion about climate change involves “doomsday scenarios which, frankly, I do not believe.”)
Credit to Mayor Carlos Giménez for resisting this nonsense.
If this proposal is adopted, developers wouldn’t pay – they would simply pass costs on to home buyers.
I have no problem with property developers being required to make the land they develop habitable. But in my opinion this proposal goes well beyond normal oversight – it requires developers to pay costs for events which haven’t happened yet, to cover a climate scenario which shows no signs of happening in the foreseeable future.
What would the impact of these additional costs be? It seems likely that extra costs would hurt poor people struggling to get on the housing ladder. But avoiding unnecessary burdens on poor people has never been a climate priority, as President Obama demonstrated when he promised to “make electricity rates skyrocket”.
They tried tis in Santa Barbara a few years back. They were going to draw a line where the sea would be in the near future.
Realtors started advertising “future beachfront property”.
Current beachfront owners apply for a reduction in property taxes due to expected reduction in value.
The measure was then shelved.
Sounds like just another shake-down scheme. Google “Rent Seeking”. Here’s a start:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Wouldn’t it be simpler to ban development on lots which haven’t had their grade raised to X feet above current sea level?
“current sea level” is a statistical calculation that changes every decade or so. The authorities should be measuring the height of the highest tides and look at the trend (which for 100 years is downwards where I live). The authorities measure the height of my house by flying over it in a plane equipped with radar, which gets a different and wrong result to surveyors with very accurate equipment.
As long as Sarasota county doesn’t do this I don’t care.
It won’t. We are to Republican for that crap.
If there’s a Doomsday Tax and Doomsday actually arrives, who will be around for a payout?
Imagine what fun would happen if the EU were to adopt laws banning development and insurance both private and commercial for such being in seismic zones, and the forced relocation of Italians to the Ukraine and Icelanders to Spain.
Tax sounds benign to me.In my city, the local government (among other things), is intent in throwing people out of their homes by effectively destroying their equity in their properties.
Read my blog https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/six-reasons-why-you-should-worry-about-climate-change/
Cheers
Roger
You can put lip stick on a tax, but it’s still a tax !!
Tax-and-spend Liberals never seem to appreciate that the ONLY people who pay taxes are workers. The “rich” have access to ways to avoid paying taxes (often involving large contributions to election campaigns) and businesses simply pass the added expense along to the consumer in higher prices for products/services. In short, all taxes only hurt the consumers.
There are no guarantees that tax monies collected will be used exclusively for the original stated purpose.
Also recall the 1991 10% “Luxury Tax” that had to be revoked only 2 years later because it was was lethal to the businesses that it taxed.
Impact fees are in use in many states around the Country. They make good sense when imposed for the proper reasons. Consider a new development of say 100 single family homes. You can expect the community to experience increases in students attending school, water usage, sewer usage, electrical usage and the potential for increased needs for emergency personnel and equipment. These are directly related to the expected increase in population living in the community. The developer will make lots of money and should be required to pay for these expected increases as a condition of approval for his plans. While the developer can pass the fees along as part of the price of the new homes, there is a limit on how much that would be to keep from pricing himself out of the market. It all works pretty well until some comes up with a hair brained idea like this one. Never doubt that politicians will say and do anything to get more money out of the people. Luckily at the local level the average citizen, if they pay attention, can have an impact on these decisions.
TinF
I agree 100%. Florida is a great place to live. Newcomers to the state need to ante up.
If all of the ice on Greenland and the two poles were to melt, how high would that raise sea levels around the world?
Obama actually says in the video, “under my plan, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”. He does not say “make electricity rates skyrocket”. Please either remove the quote marks or correct the quote.