PATA History Pages

Northern Annexation-362 Acres Estimated Incentives Costs - Pg 2

An itemized cost, by parcel, of the annexation agreements

---An excerpt of the PATA Sept-Oct Newsletter.

Annexation & rezoning are the driving factors of our growth.

Annexing ( a residential builders perspective )
As a developer wouldn’t you be thinking……
1. Free city provided sewer & water taps ($2,687 per each per lot - $5,374) for me that I can charge for or build into the price of the home or offer as incentives. That will boost my profits, without costing me a nickel.
2. Higher density, I can build more houses per acre. Let’s see Violet Township’s R1 zoning is 20,000 square foot lots and Pickerington has helped all of my developer friends by continually approving R4 zoning with 8,500 square foot lots. More homes on a parcel of ground. I can see the dollar signs, can’t you? Boy, that Mayor’s last election promises of getting the residents to see that R4 zoning as good is money in the bank for me.
3. Pickerington has more of those pesky little fees (tree fee, parks fee, storm water fees, building permit fees), but I’ll just pass them along in the closing price. That was a close one, but it’ll work as the Council keeps playing the residents off against each other.
4. I wouldn't care that the purchaser of the home could have had a choice to annex or not, I made the decision for them. I decided they would pay Pickerington an income tax and support any levy imposed. I took their ability to decide. Since there are so few job opportunities in Pickerington, the new homeowners are only going to pay one half of one-percent income tax anyway.
5. Don’t you just love those voters who just O.K.’d that school’s construction bond. They forgot that their existing high school has only been open for 10 years and they go ahead and build another one for me. I just wish that I’d capitalized last decade, but this time I’m sure to get in – build the subdivision out – and be out of town before I have to listen to the moaning about overcrowding.
6. And best of all, it only cost me a few bucks for the occasional election contributions to keep them “good old boys” in office to keep killing any referendum or initiative efforts to stop me. My desire to profit is an “emergency” for me and the council is only to willing to see my dreams come true. Isn’t “free enterprise” great!