When are the votes getting counted for Orchidland?

[Mimosa]

We have a friend in Germany who has a 2 acre square lot in OLE,he voted NO on the road fee increase .His taxes are about 350$ a year to the county.He is in the flooding zone.When he retires in another 15 years,he will move here and build to code.

[unknownjulie]

HEy Mimosa, your friend's lot must be close to mine. I think I pay a lot less in tax. Maybe because he's out of state, he pays more? Anyhow, I own a square 2 acre lot in/near flooding zone as well. If his is on 39th I can give him specific info about the area if he needs it. For instance, I got my lot surveyed and so the 2 people on either side of me, just got one of their lotlines cut through and marked.

[terracore]

To answer the original question of this thread, taken from the Orchidland website http://orchidland.org/ :

"The general membership’s proposal for road maintenance fees for FY2014-15 was rejected by the membership. A new proposal will be sent to all lot owners in June 2014."

[unknownjulie]

thx Terracore.

[terracore]

Check your mail... The Orchidland newsletter came out today, the vote to increase the road fees lost by a landslide. There was some whining about how they can't fix the roads with the now $85 fee because $43 of that cost goes to administration (whatever that is), but no mention of a plan to raise the road fees in a palatable manner.

There are 9 board vacancies and 5 people running for them.

I'm glad that there are people who are willing to serve on the board. I can only imagine how tough and thankless it is. If any of them are reading this, you have my gratitude.

And by gratitude, I mean you have to listen to my whining. I want to own 3 lots, 2 of them vacant and never generating traffic, but I can't afford $900 a year in road fees. So don't try to raise them to $300/lot/year without some sort of provision for this scenario, or else we'll just keep voting no to raising the fees over and over again.

[KeaauRich]

Terracore,

While I understand your logic that vacant, no-traffic generating lots should pay less, here's my dilemma with your proposal. Remember, the desired end goal is to get more money coming into the Orchidland coffers, not just getting a higher percentage of owners to pay.

Since many, if not most, of the lots are unoccupied, if they significantly reduce the rate for the unoccupied lots, they would need to significantly increase the rate for the occupied lots just to get back to the amount of money being collected today. If the goal is to increase the amount collected, you'd need to boost the rate for occupied lots exponentially higher. Many occupied lot owners would rebel and stop paying, or would stop paying because they honestly couldn't afford the increased amounts. Even if the vacant lot owners all paid their discounted rate, it probably wouldn't be enough to compensate for the lost revenue from the occupied lot owners.

If occupied lots pay a rate significantly higher than they pay today, that would cause vacant lot owners to rethink any plans to develop their properties, and would serve as a disincentive for newcomers to buy either vacant or occupied lots.

And your plan would essential offer the equivalent of a tax break for the wealthy, because owners who could barely afford to pay the higher rate for their a single occupied lot would, in effect, be subsidizing people wealthy enough to be able to afford multiple lot parcels.

Not to mention the fact that it would be hard to enforce your proposal. Is a lot with a tent on it an occupied lot? Should a lot with a vacant house on it (which also generates no traffic) pay the occupied lot rate or the vacant lot rate? If traffic generation is the basis for your plan, should homes with 3 drivers pay more than homes with only one? How would we determine which lots are occupied (since many homes are built well back from the road behind fences or locked gates? If we use the tax website, we're encouraging folks not to permit their structures. etc.

The bottom line is that for every option for assessing road fees, there will be someone who can raise a logical, valid argument against that option. At the end of the day, we need to focus on the main objective: raising enough money to keep the roads adequately maintained (which is more than we are raising today). So far, the most equitable, efficient and simplest option has seemed to be that every lot is assessed the same amount. Unfortunately, a significant number of people can't or won't pay their share, so the objective is to find the sweet spot number that is high enough to increase revenues, reasonable enough to prevent current payers from becoming future non-payers, and low enough to encourage non-payers to become payers. And that's the challenge our new Board members --- God bless them -- will face.

[kalakoa]

the now $85 fee because $43 of that cost goes to administration

Can you fill potholes with "administration"?

I didn't think so.

[rainyjim]

I would also like to own two "buffer lots" one on either side of my property.

I would rather buy outside of a subdivision than have to pay multiple road fees for multiple lots.

[Rob Tucker]

quote:

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Originally posted by kalakoa

the now $85 fee because $43 of that cost goes to administration

Can you fill potholes with "administration"?

I didn't think so.

---

Actually there are obviously administrative costs in any road maintenance.

[leilanidude]

Administrative costs - How much did mailing out the special vote cost, alone? I guess no one addressed all those letters for free either.