Studying Our Way to a New Subsidy Scheme, pt. 3

Confirmation of my earlier posts here .... I was part of a stakeholder meeting with Raftelis today and it was a mixed bag. As a consulting firm, they seem interested in looking at all of the relevant issues. On the other hand, they are explicitly NOT charged with making sure new real estate development pays its own way. Here's the note I just sent to City Council about it:

"Dear Councilmembers,

I just got back from the stakeholders' meeting with Raftelis. It was heartening to a limited extent - they seem to understand marginal cost pricing and one of the 'deliverables' is the maximum fees/taxes allowable by OK law (which is as close to marginal cost pricing as we will get).

On the I-told-you-so front, the Raftelis guys seem to understand their charge as exactly what I suggested in the email below [the one in "Studying Our Way to a New Subsidy Scheme"]: (1) the Wastewater Systems Masterplan is being superseded; (2) the are explicitly NOT operating on the assumption that new real estate development should pay its own way. With regard to (2), they made it clear that they will be raising considerations to the contrary to represent the development community's position. I hope they will raise the counter arguments too, but we will see.

I hope that we can at least be explicit now about the contours of the debate about the Wastewater System Development Excise Tax & the water/sewage Connection Fee: while there are numbers that need to be firmed up, the crux of the issue is whether we will be asking new real estate development to pay its own way or whether we will be subsidizing it.

Steve Ellis

Ward 4"

At least now that the framework of the debate is clear, let's talk about the principle of new real estate development paying its own way.