Thursday, April 09, 2009
Why on earth am I still living here?
Every now and then I surf through real estate listings. There's an aspect to it that's fun. The pondering of the possibilities...but, in the end, it usually makes me angry. Why? TAXES! Today's exercise- $80,000 dollar houses in the 1000-1500 square foot range. Lot sizes from small city lots to larger (250'x250') rural lots. In NY the lowest taxes to be found were about $1900 a year in Buffalo. The highest I saw today? A small $79,000 house in Lancaster at $3,600 a year. Compare this to the Wilmington, North Carolina area where the highest taxes to be found are in the city of Wilmington. They don't even bother to list them on the real estate ads. With full valuation though an $80,000 house in Wilmington comes to less than $700 a year in taxes. The combined sales taxes in New Hanover county? 6.75% In Erie County New York? 9.75% So why am I still here? I have fewer and fewer answers to that question.
posted by JTC 8:55 PM
Monday, April 06, 2009
City Rejects Urban Farm
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/630158.html?imw=Y
The city can talk about assembling contiguous tracts for development all they want. The fact remains, at half of our peak population, we don't need more housing. What we do need is less restrictive, more diligent, creative use of existing land and infrastructure. Try reading the relevant, convoluted sections of the city charter. They appear to say that while chickens are verboten, we are apparently still entitled to one milk cow per plot.
posted by JTC 1:29 PM
|
|