Ada County Commissioners, take note. You couldn’t wait to lap up the tax revenues projected by these developers during the public hearings for Avimor et al. Guess what? These ill-fated projects will end up costing County taxpayers a bundle. Not even a special taxing/bond district will bail this mess out. You need to get your money up front via a performance bond. Anything less is a disservice to this County. I hate to say I told you so… especially when all of us County residents will be picking up the tab.

Not only do we pay for failed development but we get to pay for urban sprawl as well. Water and sewer are “enterprise funds” rate payers all get to pay for expansions.

When cities expand to far too fast and growth stops, the need to pay for water and sewer lines does not go away. The people in these failed subdivisions become heavily subsidized by all rate payers.

You just gotta love growth. Old farm to market roads were never designed to carry the traffic they now carry due to a lack of political will to get growth to pay for itself. And once again it will be property taxpayers who will get to fix the mess.

Elected officials made a bargain with the devil and he has come to collect his due.

Developers, Planners, and Commissioners.

Or revise the mix, at your leisure. This is as bad as planning gets. We were told, again and again, by the developers and the county, that these planning disasters were the answer to urban sprawl. Now we are told, by the sprawling few who live there, that they like the sprawl just fine. I suppose they would, but they were supposed to like urban density, not one per 60, or whatever the current ratio is.

Once again, the commissioners have proven to be total idiots, and as the other feature on this blog verifies, they are more than willing to perpetuate the mistakes.

Liars, fools, and idiots. Developers, planners, and commissioners. They may be meant for each other. Too bad no one is interested in saving the citizens.

Clip, ranchette residents do want urban services – they just don’t want to pay urban taxes. Because of their low-density, roads, fire, police, EMS, mail, schools, cable, phone, power, etc., all cost more to provide and maintain. They pay no premium for their low-density lifestyle, and instead everyone else has to absorb the cost of their lifestyle choice. Also, unless they are pooping and sucking water out of the ground at the same time, water and sewer also cost more to provide. They also put more miles on the road because, being the rugged individualists they are, they have to drive farther to reach that godawful city for work, public open space, recreation and shopping.

At least planned communities group these homes so as to preserve open space and they purposefully plan for commercial development. As the development of Meridian shows, the imprimatur of a city government on your development doesn’t mean you have fundamental trip containment or connectivity.

And lastly, Wonkster, puh-leeze don’t hold up Hidden Springs as a model of responsible PC stewardship. Not only is that development NOT selfsustaining by the wildest stretch of the imagination, but with the grading of the now dumped/sold off 8th addition above Cartwright (which Mr. Martin swore during a town meeting would never be developed and left as open space, largely because the hillside is so obviously unstable)entire hills were leveled and Currant Creek filled in. What an environmental atrocity! No sir, Hidden Springs has had way more more impact than a few scattered ‘ranchettes,’ so quit deceiving yourself.

It’s been more than ten years now, and I suspect even your fire station is still unmanned by professionals at various shifts… at least I still see the County responding from town and I’m pretty sure the BLM boys put out your last fire when they were returning from a call from Horseshoe Bend.

The difference between wise men and fools, is that the wise learn from their mistakes.

Pinnacle Corp, the parent of SunCor/Avimor has learned from their mistakes and is getting out of the planned community business.

Ada County, for its part is set to extend the foolishness by giving the developers a two year extension to get several more of these lead balloons off the ground.

Other posters have suggested, facetiously I used to think, that we should just turn the county over to the developers, after all, how different would it be from the current situation. Right now, that looks like good advice. Pinnacle Corp, one of the biggest of the big, is shedding itself of planned communities. If only Ada County were that wise.

Wonkster,

Low density development like rural residential (1 to 10 acres) or rural preservation (1-40) acres costs very little for services largely because there aren’t any and nobody really expects it, trust me. I don’t think the rest of you are subsidizing much of anything. I could be wrong, but I think Ada County emergency services call logs would back me up on this. Also, the Seaman’s Gulch Road was NEVER routinely maintained until Hidden Springs went in and nobody in the hinterlands complained about it because it was a County road. Hidden Springs was supposed to improve the Dry Creek Road, but that never happened and now I believe they have dumped off that responsibility on the Dry Creek Ranch PC which likely won’t happen in all reality.

If you’re so keen on the virtues of density, I suggest you relocate to Calcutta.

Wonk – your point is well made and valid…why beat up only Planned Communities….why not use the Growthphobe hammer to pummel on low density rural development in the same fashion? The reason (in my opinion) is pretty simple – for better or for worse Planned Communities fall under a much stricter review and approval process dictated by a very specific ordinance.

Want more…ok here goes but I warn you it gets longwinded. The ordinance sets out very specific approval guidelines for Planned Communities. One very important component of the Planned Community ordinance application requires the applicant (developer) to perform and submit an Economic Impact Analyst. This study shows the expected financial impact that the Planned Community will have on the tax base (County, Public Safety, ACHD) over the lifespan of the development. As you might imagine, the results of that Developer funded exercise are as rosy as the grounds around Saint Lukes in early May, especially given the real estate boom of the 2005/2006 period which was when several Planned Communities such as Avimor came before the Commissioners. The Commissioners have a duty to review and challenge the Economic Impact Study before accepting the application. Not surprisingly, the Commissioners provided very little push-back to the Avimor study, which showed aggressive sales forecasts (and resultant tax base increases) even considering the favorable real estate market during which it was performed. Fast forward to today. Real estate market bust, Economic Impact study bust. Who is at fault? Was the study flawed, or did it just become the victim of unforeseeable circumstances? The Developer submitted the study as required. The Commissioners blessed it. Times changed…and now it turns out the Developer and the Commissioners blew it. Badly.

Solution? My opinion – insert teeth into the Planned Community approval process that rewards a Developer for meeting or exceeding their Economic Analysis, and holds them accountable when they don’t. Submit a realistic forecast. Beat your forecast – get some tax credits or reduced impact fees…something tangible. Don’t live up to it….cut a check every year for the difference between forecasted tax base impact and the actual result. Pretty simple to implement – take the forecast and turn it into an excel tracking spreadsheet and off you go. Heck I bet there surely is a beancounter in Ada County Development Services that could handle the extra workload in these slow times!!

There are a lot of smart people (ok maybe just a few) on this blog – it would be great to see them expand this thread with engaged conversation on a solution driven topic. Doing so would be a much more beneficial use of time than celebrating the demise of a Developer and/or saying “we told you so”.

Antiphobe, I think that is a great idea you have. I do not often hear people here discuss constructive solutions to things but that is an excellent way to follow up on the promises of developers. What’s that Russian adage? “Trust but verify.”

What sort of consequences could developers face for not meeting their self-established benchmarks? Loss of density bonuses? Financial penalties? How long and sharp the teeth?

EDITOR NOTE–Some sort of “performance bond” would probably do the trick much more easily.

Guardian & Clippityclop (would be a great name for a country band) I don’t agree…I don’t think performance bonds do the trick. Correct me if I’m wrong but the intent of performance bonds are so that developers/builders can market and sell prior to infrastructure being completed. The bonds protect buyers who purchase early on by insuring that if the developer bails, there will be a bond in place pay for completing roads, sewers, parks..whatever the developer has committed to building. That’s fine and dandy, but it’s only half the protection that is needed. After completion, roads (easiest example) are accepted by ACHD who then maintains them. If there are not enough sales to support the maintenance of those roads (see Exhibit A as in Avimor) then who subsidizes that cost. You, me and other suckers who pay into the ACHD pool. I point you back to my original post – something in the way of a tax base tracking/verification system is needed. Completing the development is one thing, paying for its ongoing maintenance and overhead with only 5 homebuyers living there is quite another.

Unless you are suggesting a performance bond that protects the sales forecast…then yeah I guess that would work hadn’t thought of that option.

EDITOR NOTE–Don’t care where the bond comes from or what it is called, but some sort of “insurance policy” is needed to protect the “rest of us” other than making more tax laws and exemptions, rebates, etc.

You nailed it phobe. That is exactly what is needed. A bond that covers completion, or buy back and removal, which ever is cheaper. And, if completion is the answer, the bond needs to cover the maintenance for a reasonable length of time, say 30 years.

Welcome to the real world.

Clip, I mentioned this in a prior post but here are some of the services that are spatially dependent: electricity, roads, postal, cable, fiber optic, public safety, wastewater, water, trash, EMS, social services, recreation, telephone and probably some others I forgot. There are fixed capital and labor costs associated with providing all these services and the fewer ratepayers/taxpayers there are per square mile, the more denser areas have to pay to offset others peoples’ higher service costs. True, many rural dwellers have fewer services, so deduct as necessary for each instance.

My point is that low-density development is much less efficient and costly to service. If you’re going to apply that argument to uncompleted planned communities, in all fairness, you must also apply it to development that is low-density by design. Some of the biggest growthophobes around live in just such development.

As for moving to Calcutta, there are plenty of examples of dense, efficient development that are part of Idaho’s original heritage, both new and modern. Rural development only became low-density with the advent of the automobile and roads. Before then, rural dwellers were truly self-sufficient or grouped in dense small towns.

Phobe, my love,

When you’re looking at several hundred million dollars of improvements to say, Highway 55, maintenance costs are fairly peanut-esque. I think Avimor tanked because, well, the location blows. Too bad Suncor laid out the cash they did, but even worse, the environment took a beating, no matter what they planted. The whole thing is a nasty scar. It’s still amazing to me that the Commishes ever bit on this fish story, but there’s no telling… Unfortunately, the taxpayers will provide the bailout because we’re still breathing. Now that blows, too.