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Costs of Community Services....See how much it costs you!

Zoning and Costs of Community Services in the Pickerington Area

8/21/00
Comments from various sources have been made regarding residential densities. At one point during the recent Growth Summit of Township, City and Schools officials, PLSD board member Larry Sigman mentioned the use of 2.8 homes per acre as a planning figure utilized by the schools for student population projections.

Confusion in this area comes from the fact that the residential zoning densities within the Greater Pickerington Area are affected by different government entities with differing zoning rules. Violet Township zoning differs from City of Pickerington zoning as well as the other cities which comprise our geographic area.

Another often misunderstood scenario being continually inferred by government officials is that by increasing the number of people paying income, property and other taxes, we can overcome the burden of the added infrastructure and services that this ever growing population requires. These governing agencies must choose to either spend more money to support the exploding infrastructure needs or not spend the money, allowing the infrastructure to deteriorate, reducing the quality of life in the community.

Each of these zoning authorities continues to allow an increase in the number of additional homes to be built in our community. All will feel the pinch of the infrastructure or Cost of Community Services (COCS) required in support of these residential needs.

Citizens in the northern portion of Violet Township have spoken and acted time and again urging zoning officials to adopt lower residential densities than those proposed by developers. Many of these efforts are rooted in the realization that the overcrowded conditions in our schools will worsen substantially if the current (and proposed) levels of residential building continue. This trend… if unchecked, will cost the taxpayers additional hundreds of millions of school tax dollars and represents the biggest burden on the resources of the community.


As we approach ballot issues for additional bonds and levies on police services and schools, please consider the results of the Costs of Community Services Study (COCS). Below are excerpts from the Fairfield County Farmland Plan of 2000. Allen Prindle, a professor in the Economics Department of Otterbein College, in cooperation with the consulting team conducted and completed this study in March 2000. The study focused on Hocking and neighboring Liberty Townships, yet numerous references to other residentially developing communities were made. The relative differences in expenditures per dollar revenue by land use category gave the following results.

Farmland had a cost of services between $0.05 and $0.17 for every tax dollar collected.

Commercial / Industrial land use had a cost of services of between $0.27 and $0.51 for every tax dollar collected.

Residential land use had a cost of $1.10 to $1.15 for every tax dollar collected.

A recent article in one of our area’s weekly papers cited a Northern Ohio residential land use COCS at close to $1.50 for every dollar collected.

Within the conclusions of Mr. Prindle’s work is the suggestion that growing communities with only residential land uses are likely to experience higher service expenditures compared to revenue streams. He suggests that public officials use this information to help understand what happens when land use changes occur, and growing communities should be aware of the need to appropriately balance both commercial / industrial development with residential development.

All information stated is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication.