Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Here's the facts

Ms. Rose


You posted here saying you knew the facts yet I see that you are giving yet another group of numbers that are different than the ones I have heard before. You are stating that this PROPOSED Community Authority would have 3800 homes in it, at a mean cost per home of $225,000. This would also produce a GROSS $35 Million.


Clearly you talk about funding as if the money coming from this Community Authority will fund the needed Capital Improvements for these 3800 new families. If you go to the bank and say I have a guaranteed $35 million of income over the next 30 years or so (because no one has stated just how many years this CA will be). They will be able to only loan you $22,500,000. The other $13,000,000 will be interest payments for borrowing the money. So you are not correct in saying we will receive $35 Million from this CA. We will receive around $22 million if your gross figure of 35 million is correct.

Bruce Rigelman laid out the capital costs for these new students and I do not believe he was using your figures but more down around 3000 new homes. In any event the figures are so far off that I don?’t need Bruce Rigelman?’s numbers to challenge your claims here. Bruce talked about the CAPITAL costs being upwards of $150 million. So if your CA brings in $22 million and it costs us, as taxpayers $150,000,000 how is that a good deal? It is like buying a bag of quarters for a $1.50 each using your logic.

If we don?’t have the students from these 3800 new homes then we don?’t need to be building new schools and the ones we do build will be over longer time spans. The current High School was built in 1991 and now we have a second High School in 1993. The current tax payers funded or are funding those buildings. If the new high school would not have built until say 2007 I believe the taxpayers would have been more than willing to support the school OPERATING Levy. This district has been more than generous for years now. You can?’t be placing a school issue before the voters every year an expect them to be happy about it. That is exactly what your position seems to be.

If you go back on this web site look for a copy of Professor Alan Pringle study on cost of community services. I am sure you will find that NEW residential housing developments cost the community $1.50 in services for every tax dollar they receive. So all of these new homes being built they are costing us all money. Now if you balance that with commercial then it costs the community about $.50 in services for every dollar received. So if you want to tie residential growth to anything tie it to community development and we break even.

More facts

You also state that growth will happen. I agree with you there, but we differ on the rate of growth. Cities in Ohio that have controlled their rate of residential growth have improved their financial well being and have actual bond ratings that they can tout as very good. Cities like Beachwood, Hudson and Solon. Hudson and Solon limit the RATE of residential growth to 1.5% and 1.7% respectively. Of all of the studies I have read over the last four years they indicate that an acceptable rate of growth is between 1.5% to 2%. Pickerington rate was over 7.5% last year. Please show me studies where city planners encourage the rates of growth you are proposing.


Most planners that I have talked with and that I have read there studies say some growth is needed for financial basis because investors do need to see growth to provide security for their loans to the government entities. In the Hudson, Ohio study they were alarmed at a sustained growth rate of 3.5 %. They compared that growth rate to third world countries with growth rates of 4% to 5% and those countries couldn?’t provide adequate infrastructure for their citizens either.


The point here is that you can?’t show me the numbers to being even close to supporting your position. I doubt you can produce any academic study supporting your position. If you do it would be in the minority opinion of most city planners.

I think if the Chamber of Commerce has aligned itself with high rates of residential growth and they fully support the city hall?’s position then they better be able to show with hard numbers how they reached their conclusion not this current method of look a figure here then a figure there and see I told you so. What do you base your position on? Official studies? Can you show in a spread sheet your figures?

The fact is, if we slow the rate of growth down to a reasonable rate similar to Solon, Ohio and Hudson, Ohio we can slowly build ourselves out of this mess. We must start looking at the big picture and not focus on one small part. I think you have focused you concerns on a small part of the problem.

I believe many of your chambers members are afraid that slowed growth will hurt their business. I often wonder why your chamber sits by while this city council passed ordinances that are anti-business and the chamber said say nothing? If you have ever been to a Pickerington zoning commission meeting you would see some of the worse harassment of local business owners just trying to open a building and the chamber never says a thing. Yet let a home builder come in with hundreds of home plans and they expedite the process even to hire additional employees to be accommodating.

So Sara, Show me the numbers.

Operating Expense Crisis



Sara -

I think what everyone is talking about has to do with timing.

Allowing a large # of homes to be built at a rate our schools cannot absorb to get $35M when the lowest price tag I have seen that covers the actual schools needed is $114.5M is risky at best.

Is $35M nice to have - absolutely. Could it also lead to Split Sessions if once the 2 schools are built & we really get 2800 kids (lowest possible # as it uses .7 per home) - the actual # of kids could be as high as 6000 kids if we use the incremental # of children - 1.5.

The danger in using the ''average'' of .7 is that it accounts for mature neighborhoods who are not contributing children to the school district. None of the new homes will begin at this point in the cycle.

We as residents should be controlling the growth rate in our Community. To allow accelerated growth would only be prudent in my opinion if there was also a plan for additional commercial development that would be happening concurrently. I am not a fan of allowing the growth to happen & hope we can work on Commercial Growth along the way - that needs to be addressed first, then once the school district is at a point where a bigger financial emergency isn't created we build the homes.

I actually agree with the point the poster made by encouraged that said, '' WE WILL PAY FOR THE NEW BUILDINGS AND MONEY TO OPERATE THEM OURSELVES. WE DO NOT NEED THE COMMUNITY AUTHORITY OR THE BUILDERS.''

I would vote for Bond & Operating expenses in a minute that would get our kids out of trailers & accomodate a planned & reasonable amount of growth 1.5% a year until our schools are caught up. Doing anything differently from that guarentees the state of our schools as to where they are today as the best case (one I'm not satisfied with). I think we can do better than that - I believe the NO vote occured this week as it enables the developers to continue for a little longer unchecked. Or at least that is the perception I've heard.

Operating Expense Crisis - 2

We need to draw a line in the sand - it needs to be in the part of the beach that is determined by the people that live in the community.

It needs time.

It needs planning & not just CA planning.

A Community Authority will not work unless we have a stronger commercial tax base. If the City worked as hard on a Commercial tax base as they do to attract residential development we might be better off. What I do know is that if the brakes are put on building in the short term they will have the time to focus there.

Do I think the lack of these 4000 starter homes, right away, will make commercial development stay away from Pickerington ? No - I don't. Gender Road has built a sea of starter homes in the last 5 years & the commercial development on Brice Road can't get away from it fast enough.

Is the City focused on Commercial Development? Not as much as they should be. In the last year they have spent $125,000 to fight Annexation reform at the state level. Wouldn't it have been more beneficial to spend that to lobby ODOT for access points to the potential commercial land we do have in the school district so it is viable ??

I am glad that the Ordinance passed on Tuesday night even though I'm not crazy about the CA guidelines being a piece of it. It slows down housing permits from 6/6 - the end of the year to 25 per quarter. We will not be able to slow down permits with Ted's growth plan until late Nov/early Dec if we get it on the ballot.

What we have to ensure is that ''real'' costs are reviewed with a Community Authority & it doesn't get put in place until the timing is right. And it might never be.

If the $35M is such a good thing would the BIA be willing to cover the Brick & Mortar gaps? Would they be willing to fund the Operating Costs for Community Authority Schools if the Community is not able to?

And as a township resident - I don't want a City Rec Center. I want a Rec Center that all residents in the Township will be welcome to - incorporated & unincorporated. And I'm happy to help pay for that too.