New Council = New UGAs?
New County Council = Expanded Urban Growth Areas?
Council Chairman Sam Crawford and large landowners are looking to expand into hundreds of acres, reversing the Council UGA votes of 2009…
Read the Herald article here. This is the first I have heard of it…
February 8th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Councilor Crawford sent out an email on December 31, 2009. I have it printed on Latte Republic. Crawford’s proposal to expand UGAs is going to cost taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.
I recently posted a blog regarding taxpayer subsidies of development. Projects like West Blaine will be very expensive. From what I’ve read on the City of Blaine website, the project requires seven miles of water lines, sewer pipe and utlities. Hence, it is a reasonable example of leap frog sprawl.
Asking development to pay it’s own way (as is done in many other communities across the nation) will help us preserve LOS and reduce our tax burden.
Check with Steve Oliver, our County Treasurer. He may be able to provide you with more background facts about this issue than I can. After all, this information is not readily available to citizens. I ought to know. No one, except Steve Oliver has responded to any of my requests for a breakdown of cost and projected revenue associated with growth.
I believe strongly that the costs associated with proposed UGAs should be available for taxpayer review before the County Council adopts UGAs.
http://whatcomforum.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-very-likely-growth-management.html