The Board of Supervisors held a special meeting on 28 August to hold a public hearing on a proposed change in the property tax rate for aircraft kept at the Cavern’s airport. The change would reduce the tax rate from $3.90 per $100 of depreciated value of an aircraft to $.50 per $100 of the current blue book value of an aircraft.
According to Powell Markowitz (Airport Commission) a reduction in the tax rate on aircraft would attract more people and businesses to keep their aircraft in the county. If I understood correctly, the net effect would be to provide more tax revenue in the long run. To be sure, Mr. Markowitz and his associates have clearly done their homework (Lots of numbers and supporting rationale.) The proposed reduction in the tax rate is reasonably consistent with the tax rates levied by other counties within the state. The rates vary from pennies on the dollar to rates slightly above the rate proposed for Page County. The basis for aircraft valuation varies from county to county. The proposed use of blue book value for aircraft kept in Page County seems to be reasonably consistent with how other counties operate. The long term promise from the airport folks is there will be offsetting revenue accruing to the county by virtue of having more taxable aircraft kept in the county (taxed at a relatively constant value (i.e. blue book vs. a declining value based on a straight line depreciation). In addition, it was suggested additional revenues would accrue to the county based on some unspecified increase in better paying jobs in support of the airport operations and some unspecified increase in tax revenue due to more unspecified businesses wanting to come to the county.
The improvement and expansion of the airport would be funded, I assume over time, by Federal grants (95%), State grants (3%), Luray (1%) and Page County (1%). At present, the airport folks have obtained a state grant to begin the process in the amount of $500,000. If I understood correctly, it would be used to add 30 T Hangars. Apparently, there are approximately 15 people with aircraft waiting in the wings, so to speak, for these hangers with promises for more.
One citizen, John Rogerson, spoke at the public hearing. The essence of his concerns seemed to reflect skepticism mostly about the promises offered as part of the rationale for reducing the tax rate in that it benefited the wealthy aircraft owners and would cost the county more money in the future. I believe he was referring to the 1% contribution by both the town and county to support the development of the airport. In terms of real dollars, it is unclear what that cost would be. As a practical matter, I share some of Mr. Rogerson’s concerns. If we build it, will they come?
The airport folks are asking the county to take what I would call a business risk by making an investment. The investment would be a short term loss of some tax revenue with the promise of a long term return on that investment of higher tax revenues and possibly the creation of a few new jobs. Mr. Cubbage asked when the county might expect to begin realizing the promised returns. Mr. Markowitz suggested that it would certainly begin within a year.
Mr. LaFrance offered a very astute observation. If I understood correctly, it would seem the county has to come to grips with what it really wants the county to look like down the road. Should the county strive to maintain its rural character or should it really look to the future and support economic growth opportunities? I gathered the real decision is a tough one. Certainly anything that increases tax revenues and adds jobs to the economy is desirable. The decision would boil down to “at what cost,” not only in terms of financial support but at some compromise with maintaining the rural character of the county. I do not envy the Board having to make this particular decision.
The issue will be offered for vote at the next regular session of the Board of Supervisors.
I have attempted to capture the essence of the hearing. If I have misrepresented anything, comments and corrections are welcomed.
Showing posts with label The Airport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Airport. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The Airport
Topic 1: The Airport – Aug 7 Work Session
These are my notes, the notes of one citizen who attended. They are not minutes of the meeting. I post them here, because if you wait for the official minutes to come out, it will be October, and then if there were anything discussed that you wanted to take action about, it will be too late. If anyone was there and had a different take on what happened, just hit the Comments button and add your two cents.
1. Property tax reduction on aircraft.
The first issue for the airport was the reduction of the property tax on aircraft from $3.90 to 50 cents. A committee had been appointed previously to study this. The recommendation from the Airport Commission was that the tax had to be reduced in order to attract people to park their planes at our airport, because the surrounding counties had a low tax or no tax. The committee concluded that we needed to change our formula on how to calculate the value of the airplane. We had previously been depreciating the airplane quickly, just as we do on cars. By changing our assessment of a plane’s value to something like it’s “Blue Book” equivalent value, we could get the same total revenue at a 50 cent tax rate as we currently do at $3.90. This total is something in the area of $11,000 in tax revenue, so it’s not a big part of the county budget. The compelling reason to do this is to attract more aircraft to be parked there, so we can justify building more hangars, extending the runway, and upgrading the overall airport. The key to our reason for doing this is that we can get grant money for all of it, and having a bigger and nicer airport makes the community more attractive to business.
If the Supervisors turn down this request to reduce the property tax rate, it is the same as saying they don’t want the airport to attract more planes, and then it won’t need more hangars, or be in a good position to get the grant money.
Regarding the extension of the runway and the people who have received letters that the airport wants to buy their land: This topic wasn’t brought up at the meeting, but I asked Powell Markowitz to explain it. He said some people have received letters, but there is no invocation of eminent domain in this process. He said the airport was negotiating in good faith, with multiple independent assessors to determine the value, and that they would negotiate the purchases, not force the sales.
As far as the extension of the runway in the north direction, that is a long term plan, not expected until 2014 or later. If you have received a letter asking to buy your land, that's exactly what it is. A request. The County Supervisors have not been involved in this. It is not an eminent domain situation.
The Supervisors decided to call a special public hearing to consider the question of whether to reduce the property tax on aircraft (and remember the comments were that this is pretty nearly the same as considering whether to expand the airport). So if this is an important issue to YOU, you have to attend the public hearing and make your voice known. There will be a teeny, tiny notice in the classifieds section of the Page News when this is scheduled. Or, you can keep watching this website, and sign yourself up to receive notices from NewsList@PageCountyWatch.org and I’ll let you know when it’s scheduled.
Alice’s Opinion (which falls under the category “Everybody has one”)
This is a perfect example of the process by which the county (perhaps all counties, but definitely this county) operates. The question is never put to the citizens, “Do you want to have an expanded airport, with both the consequences and the benefits of such?”. There is no public debate, answering the questions posted in the comments section of the Blog, “Taking Land Again”. Nobody poses the big questions: what are the benefits, what are the consequences, what is the big picture. From what I heard, I doubt that the county supervisors are even AWARE that citizens received letters from the Airport Commission notifying them that the airport intended to buy their land. It surely didn’t come up at any Supervisors meeting in the last six months. Now, the thing is, if the airport intends to buy your land, and you don’t want to sell, what will happen? Either you will eventually decide that they are making an offer you can’t refuse, or they will eventually decide they can solve their problem by buying somebody else’s land, and your house will be sitting there surrounded by an airport, deteriorating in market value with every takeoff and landing. So in truth, if your house is next to an airport, and the airport wants to expand, you might as well start looking for a better place to live. These are not eminent domain “takings”. They’re going to negotiate with you in good faith. But there is no doubt, your bargaining position is considerably weak.
But back to the big picture. From what I’ve seen, the county isn’t going to hold a public meeting to discuss the wisdom of expanding the airport. That’s something that should have been done in the Comprehensive Plan, but wasn’t, because of the previously examined glaring deficiencies of such plan. (See this Blog in June and July) Rather than open debate on the big picture, the county is going to post a small notice in the Classifieds that invites citizens to a public hearing on whether or not we should lower the property tax rate on aircraft.
It doesn’t say, “Should we or should we not expand the airport, and here are the downsides and the upsides.”
It says, “Should we lower the property tax rate on aircraft?” Citizens see it, but they don’t understand the implications of the question, so they don’t show up at the meeting.
The answer to should we lower the property tax rate on aircraft is: Do we or do we not want to expand the airport? If we do, then yes, we should lower the property tax rate on aircraft. That we want to expand the airport is taken as a “given” by the Supervisors, but never posed as a question or a debate to the people.
As a result, citizens don’t understand the implications of the question asked, so it becomes difficult to have a researched, intelligent, and thoughtful comment to add at the public hearing. Our public hearings then become a forum for a handful of frustrated people, who wonder why the Supervisors don’t pay any attention to them.
So my opinion is: Yes, we should expand the airport, and we need to lower the property tax rate on aircraft in order to do that. But my opinion is based on my desire to see more business come to the county, and a totally unproven and unstudied bias, based on subjective and unfounded feelings that a bigger airport would be an attraction for business. Your opinion might be different from mine, and neither of us can point to any set of facts or studies to say anything either way.
And why don’t we ever have that public debate? Because we didn’t open up the development of our Comprehensive Plan to a large group of people, with diverse viewpoints, and we didn’t have the public debates about the big picture that a Comprehensive Plan requires. We didn’t develop a Land Use Map, like the Virginia Code requires, and now we’re faced with making every decision out of context.
That’s Alice’s Opinion, for what one citizen’s opinion is worth.
2. Luray Landing’s storm drain proposal
Now, the other airport issue discussed was the Luray Landing plan to put a dry pond at the end of the airport runway, in the no-fly zone. The Airport Commission wants them to put it somewhere else, and the issue here was that there is disorganization in the discussion process. There is the Developer of Luray Landing, who needs to coordinate this stuff with the Airport Commission, the Town of Luray, Page County, and the various state and federal agencies who are concerned about storm water management and airports. What really came out is that there are too many people involved who aren’t all in the same room at the same time. The resolution on this was to direct the developer to coordinate with Mark Belton and come to an agreement with the Airport Commission.
Alice’s Opinion on this is: Who is going to buy a house crammed into a subdivision stuck between Wal-Mart and an airport, when there is all this beautiful land out here that you can quick grab while the By-Right subdivisions are still legal? See the Blog on By-Right Subdivisions, coming later.
These are my notes, the notes of one citizen who attended. They are not minutes of the meeting. I post them here, because if you wait for the official minutes to come out, it will be October, and then if there were anything discussed that you wanted to take action about, it will be too late. If anyone was there and had a different take on what happened, just hit the Comments button and add your two cents.
1. Property tax reduction on aircraft.
The first issue for the airport was the reduction of the property tax on aircraft from $3.90 to 50 cents. A committee had been appointed previously to study this. The recommendation from the Airport Commission was that the tax had to be reduced in order to attract people to park their planes at our airport, because the surrounding counties had a low tax or no tax. The committee concluded that we needed to change our formula on how to calculate the value of the airplane. We had previously been depreciating the airplane quickly, just as we do on cars. By changing our assessment of a plane’s value to something like it’s “Blue Book” equivalent value, we could get the same total revenue at a 50 cent tax rate as we currently do at $3.90. This total is something in the area of $11,000 in tax revenue, so it’s not a big part of the county budget. The compelling reason to do this is to attract more aircraft to be parked there, so we can justify building more hangars, extending the runway, and upgrading the overall airport. The key to our reason for doing this is that we can get grant money for all of it, and having a bigger and nicer airport makes the community more attractive to business.
If the Supervisors turn down this request to reduce the property tax rate, it is the same as saying they don’t want the airport to attract more planes, and then it won’t need more hangars, or be in a good position to get the grant money.
Regarding the extension of the runway and the people who have received letters that the airport wants to buy their land: This topic wasn’t brought up at the meeting, but I asked Powell Markowitz to explain it. He said some people have received letters, but there is no invocation of eminent domain in this process. He said the airport was negotiating in good faith, with multiple independent assessors to determine the value, and that they would negotiate the purchases, not force the sales.
As far as the extension of the runway in the north direction, that is a long term plan, not expected until 2014 or later. If you have received a letter asking to buy your land, that's exactly what it is. A request. The County Supervisors have not been involved in this. It is not an eminent domain situation.
The Supervisors decided to call a special public hearing to consider the question of whether to reduce the property tax on aircraft (and remember the comments were that this is pretty nearly the same as considering whether to expand the airport). So if this is an important issue to YOU, you have to attend the public hearing and make your voice known. There will be a teeny, tiny notice in the classifieds section of the Page News when this is scheduled. Or, you can keep watching this website, and sign yourself up to receive notices from NewsList@PageCountyWatch.org and I’ll let you know when it’s scheduled.
Alice’s Opinion (which falls under the category “Everybody has one”)
This is a perfect example of the process by which the county (perhaps all counties, but definitely this county) operates. The question is never put to the citizens, “Do you want to have an expanded airport, with both the consequences and the benefits of such?”. There is no public debate, answering the questions posted in the comments section of the Blog, “Taking Land Again”. Nobody poses the big questions: what are the benefits, what are the consequences, what is the big picture. From what I heard, I doubt that the county supervisors are even AWARE that citizens received letters from the Airport Commission notifying them that the airport intended to buy their land. It surely didn’t come up at any Supervisors meeting in the last six months. Now, the thing is, if the airport intends to buy your land, and you don’t want to sell, what will happen? Either you will eventually decide that they are making an offer you can’t refuse, or they will eventually decide they can solve their problem by buying somebody else’s land, and your house will be sitting there surrounded by an airport, deteriorating in market value with every takeoff and landing. So in truth, if your house is next to an airport, and the airport wants to expand, you might as well start looking for a better place to live. These are not eminent domain “takings”. They’re going to negotiate with you in good faith. But there is no doubt, your bargaining position is considerably weak.
But back to the big picture. From what I’ve seen, the county isn’t going to hold a public meeting to discuss the wisdom of expanding the airport. That’s something that should have been done in the Comprehensive Plan, but wasn’t, because of the previously examined glaring deficiencies of such plan. (See this Blog in June and July) Rather than open debate on the big picture, the county is going to post a small notice in the Classifieds that invites citizens to a public hearing on whether or not we should lower the property tax rate on aircraft.
It doesn’t say, “Should we or should we not expand the airport, and here are the downsides and the upsides.”
It says, “Should we lower the property tax rate on aircraft?” Citizens see it, but they don’t understand the implications of the question, so they don’t show up at the meeting.
The answer to should we lower the property tax rate on aircraft is: Do we or do we not want to expand the airport? If we do, then yes, we should lower the property tax rate on aircraft. That we want to expand the airport is taken as a “given” by the Supervisors, but never posed as a question or a debate to the people.
As a result, citizens don’t understand the implications of the question asked, so it becomes difficult to have a researched, intelligent, and thoughtful comment to add at the public hearing. Our public hearings then become a forum for a handful of frustrated people, who wonder why the Supervisors don’t pay any attention to them.
So my opinion is: Yes, we should expand the airport, and we need to lower the property tax rate on aircraft in order to do that. But my opinion is based on my desire to see more business come to the county, and a totally unproven and unstudied bias, based on subjective and unfounded feelings that a bigger airport would be an attraction for business. Your opinion might be different from mine, and neither of us can point to any set of facts or studies to say anything either way.
And why don’t we ever have that public debate? Because we didn’t open up the development of our Comprehensive Plan to a large group of people, with diverse viewpoints, and we didn’t have the public debates about the big picture that a Comprehensive Plan requires. We didn’t develop a Land Use Map, like the Virginia Code requires, and now we’re faced with making every decision out of context.
That’s Alice’s Opinion, for what one citizen’s opinion is worth.
2. Luray Landing’s storm drain proposal
Now, the other airport issue discussed was the Luray Landing plan to put a dry pond at the end of the airport runway, in the no-fly zone. The Airport Commission wants them to put it somewhere else, and the issue here was that there is disorganization in the discussion process. There is the Developer of Luray Landing, who needs to coordinate this stuff with the Airport Commission, the Town of Luray, Page County, and the various state and federal agencies who are concerned about storm water management and airports. What really came out is that there are too many people involved who aren’t all in the same room at the same time. The resolution on this was to direct the developer to coordinate with Mark Belton and come to an agreement with the Airport Commission.
Alice’s Opinion on this is: Who is going to buy a house crammed into a subdivision stuck between Wal-Mart and an airport, when there is all this beautiful land out here that you can quick grab while the By-Right subdivisions are still legal? See the Blog on By-Right Subdivisions, coming later.
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