Palm Beach Post – Wednesday, September 17, 2014 We can still repair our overbuilt future Four things increase with higher-density development: noise, traffic, crime and taxes. No community wants that. Homeowners don’t want it. Developers want it. Government taxing entities want it. New construction means tax revenue, money for expenses of government and its employees. The 87 percent of taxpayers who don’t have pensions are expected to finance them for government workers, on top of other government expenses that taxpayers don’t want. Self-serving slogans like “Eastward Ho!” to justify the high-density development being visited on the Panama Hattie’s site are absurd. Folks in the eastern part of the county don’t want higher-density development. Plans like Minto’s play the familiar shell game of proposing two or three times the approved number of units, then scaling back to only 1½ times the approved amount after public outcry. County and municipal officials go along because they want the revenue from these projects, instead of holding the line. Sadly, for Palm Beach County, it is too late. Developers, governments want noise, traffic. Not us. Six- and eight-lane roads run east and west. Cars roar north and south along Military Trail, the turnpike and I-95. The noise of cars and trucks fills the air and filters into most every neighborhood. Noise, traffic, crime, high taxes. These are the major reasons why people move to someplace else. But we can still make the future “less worse.” Roll back the millage rates. Reduce government spending to things the people who actually live here now want. Stop helping developers spoil the landscape. Stop subsidizing entities like Digital Domain, baseball teams and Scripps. Let taxpayers have their own money back to spend as they choose. SHIRLEY HENDERSON COLEE, PALM BEACH GARDENS
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:23:26 +0000
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