Before resigning amid a purchasing department scandal, former Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley was known to recommend political and economic reading material to colleagues during his tenure. Now, his successor, County Administrator Randall Reid is recommending Ley’s writing for good reading.
In a Sept. 16 email to county commissioners and managers, Reid urges them to pick up a copy of the August edition of Government Finance Review. Ley and former Sarasota County planner Peter Katz authored an article touting the benefits of property taxes and the payoffs that come from intense, mixed-use development — planned intelligently, of course.
“Revenue return from property taxes is the missing metric for communities that want to grow in a way that is healthy, balanced and economically sustainable,” Katz writes.
He notes that often times government officials overlook the property-tax revenues per acre of a proposed development.
Under this metric, mixed-use, urban developments typically out perform classic suburban develoments by a huge margin.
For instance, in Sarasota, the 1350 Main Street condominium generated $1.2 million per acre of annual property taxes in 2008. That is more than 100 times greater than the amount per acre generated by Sarasota Square Mall and more than 300 times greater than that of a single-family home.
That was at the beginning of the Great Recession.
Ley argues in his article that property taxes generated from buildings like that of 1350 Main can help buoy municipalities in down times.
“Although the perceived impacts of more intense development may be scary to some, the actual impacts of density done well, as many revitalized downtowns and some newly intensified suburban centers have shown, may be minimal or may be offset by other significant benefits,” Ley writes.
In other municipal news:
• Sarasota County closes a request for invitations to negotiate for the sale of county-owned land on North Washington Boulevard and Fruitville Road.
• Sarasota County Area Transit beats its goal of installing 40 new bus shelters during the fiscal year by at least four.
• Sarasota County Neighborhood Services becomes the latest county office to join Facebook.
