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.

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.

Welcome to the real world.

Every major construction company is required to bond out as part of their bid, or nobody would dream of accepting the bid. The ability to produce this surety is a huge source of pride for companies because it says that the surety also agrees that they can do what they say they can do, and protection is guaranteed. Most, if not all of these developers do NOT have the financial horsepower to fund the infrastructure for these projects and must rely on home sales which is an extraordinary gamble — one that shouldn’t be backed by the citizens of Ada County.

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.

What color is the sky in your world? Please reread my previous post. Rural dwellers have trash service, but water and sewer aren’t an issue. EMS services are what they are — nobody expects a 4-minute response time and assumes the risk. The same is true for wildfire. Again, if folks wanted urban services, they would have moved to town!

G, I agree. It’s all about the performance bond.

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.

Wonk was try to say- it is more efficient (water,sewer,trash) to have 40 houses per mile of road versus 4 to 6.

I think PC’s can be very beneficial for their stated reasons. Avimor’s demise has nothing to do whether or not it was well planned. I would say the best example of a PC is Bown Crossing though it was never touted to be.