[Joe V.]

Originally Posted by Advogado

The promise of rolling back our massive property-tax increase was premised upon increasing the Developer's sweetheart impact fee so that he, not the current residents, would pay for the infrastructure necessitated by the Developer's massive expansion of The Villages. The Developer, through state legislation sponsored by the Developer's employee Brett Hage, made it impossible to accomplish this. Every time that we pay our county property tax, we are, in effect, writing a check to the Developer for the amount of the tax increase.

Thank you, Representative Hage, and also thanks to the remaining two Developer-puppet Commissioners (Breeden and Gilpin) who enacted the tax increase in 2019. Hopefully, all three will be ousted next year in the Republican primary.

Back to avacdos and sweetheart deals and puppet slurs.

[Joe V.]

Originally Posted by Zenmama18

Just vote him out in the next election!

Good luck. He won last election with +65%.

[Joe V.]

Originally Posted by Advogado

They had a plan; they had the experience. They were beaten down by the economic and political power of the Developer.

I disagree with the contents of this post.

[Shellshack]

Mr and Mrs Jones. I this house costs $200,000 to construct plus $20,000 in development (impact) fees. I can charge you $200,000 and you pay the fees, or I can charge you $220,000 and I pay the fees.
Either way you will live in a wonderful community which is clean, relatively crime free, has one third of the property taxes you had in Illinois, none of the income taxes. We bought in and are glad we did. I cannot understand people who choose to complain after they voluntarily moved in knowing exactly what they were getting.
Finally, I was of the understanding that these threads were to be free of politics. Can we now start using these as a political forum??Endorsing or opposing specific candidates or parties seem rather political to me???

[kappy]

My intention for posting this thread is to show that the budget should be rolling back the county tax by much more than the 3% in the proposed budget. Remember, it is not only Sumter County Villagers who pay property taxes. All Sumter County property owners will benefit from a larger than 3% roll back. It may not matter to most Villagers however, there are many Sumter County property owners who were hurt by the 25% County tax increase in 2019.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by Shellshack

Mr and Mrs Jones. I this house costs $200,000 to construct plus $20,000 in development (impact) fees. I can charge you $200,000 and you pay the fees, or I can charge you $220,000 and I pay the fees.
Either way you will live in a wonderful community which is clean, relatively crime free, has one third of the property taxes you had in Illinois, none of the income taxes. We bought in and are glad we did. I cannot understand people who choose to complain after they voluntarily moved in knowing exactly what they were getting.
Finally, I was of the understanding that these threads were to be free of politics. Can we now start using these as a political forum??Endorsing or opposing specific candidates or parties seem rather political to me???

Mr. and Mrs. Me bought our house in 2018. As far as I know, the $20,000 was included in the price we paid. In 2019 our property tax (along with tens of thousands of our neighbors) was increased by 25%, in part to pay for the new roads South of 44 rather than increasing the impact fees on that new construction. All of us pay more in taxes so that Mr. and Mrs. Jones don't have to pay as much in fees. The issue is much more complex than that but that is the basic complaint.

[Villages Kahuna]

You hit it right on the button!

[charlie1]

Originally Posted by Bilyclub

Have you ever been South of 44? Millions of dollars spent on improvements of County roads. I think the figure tossed around is Sumter County is paying 110 million worth of road improvements.

Have you even looked at the Sumter County Finances? In Fiscal year 20/21 they budgetted $25 million for ALL capital improvements in the county. Please look at the county budget and expenses over the last couple of years. It does not support that Sumter county came anywhere near $110 million in Property taxes to pay for new roads!

[Bilyclub]

Originally Posted by charlie1

Have you even looked at the Sumter County Finances? In Fiscal year 20/21 they budgetted $25 million for ALL capital improvements in the county. Please look at the county budget and expenses over the last couple of years. It does not support that Sumter county came anywhere near $110 million in Property taxes to pay for new roads!

Nobody said 110 million a year. 110 million is the figure for the Sumter County portion of the expansion South of 44.The County has 5 years to pay off invoices from the developer for road improvements according to their agreement. The agreement also gives the County more time to pay off other projects like 15 years for the Southern Oaks Bridge. Meggison Road from 44 to Warm Springs cost just under 30 million according to the County. Looking at the budget for 2021 on page 241 the projections for 2021, 2022 and 2023, the Buena Vista Extension is coming in at a total of 20 million. That's 50 mill right there. On page 238 there are projections for 2023, 2024, and 2025, of 26 Million total for roads already built in Southern Oaks. Thanks for the tip to read the budget.

[Northwoods]

Originally Posted by Advogado

You are right about one thing, and one thing alone. The new Commissioners didn't deliver on the property-tax rollback. However, that is because the Developer used his employee, Representative Brett Hage, to sponsor legislation prevent the delivery by making it impossible to increase the Developer's sweetheart impact fee. The stench of what is going on here is overwhelming.

Wow. I must have missed the part of the campaign slogan that said "IF WE CAN INCREASE DEVELOPER IMPACT FEES, then we will roll back a 25% tax increase.
They ran on the promise of rolling back the tax increase. They've failed.
Face it - the new commissioners have been totally outplayed by The Developer. You can whine about why they can't deliver. But the fact is, they haven't delivered.
The new commissioners have dug in their heels and adopted a very anti-developer agenda. That's been their Achille's heel. If they would try to find common ground and negotiate (If they would have negotiated the Developer's offer of 40% Impact Fees would we be further ahead?). But... they can't. And it's the residents of Sumter County that suffer.

[Luggage]

You all are missing the basic point that taxes went up 50 million dollars. Yes something needed New roads but it's still 50 million dollars that the existing homeowners are paying. The actual tax base when you're with 3 to 4,000 homes and a few million square feet of new businesses every year is about 3% more. To be fair besides New roads the county will need new police and fire substations as well as sewage and water pipes etc depending on who pays what but the fact of the matter is over the next 10 years the citizens are getting screwed on the order of close to half a billion dollars to pay for a new residents to move here instead of it being part of the infrastructure tax. The reality is when it's done this way the developers have less cost and can sell a home cheaper and slow down their own need to put money up front. One other thing I will mention is that almost always a municipality can borrow money cheaper than a private Corp so that it does actually save somewhat for the county itself. If you don't want to pay these big taxes and you don't have to approve a developer building more homes and you can rezone land to farms instead of housing and simply stop the development

[geobet]

As a 16 yr resident of TV, I am constantly amazed by the newbies who move here because it’s a great place to live, and then begin demanding change because their way is better.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by geobet

As a 16 yr resident of TV, I am constantly amazed by the newbies who move here because it’s a great place to live, and then begin demanding change because their way is better.

Does this mean we cannot question anything that the developer decides to do?

This is a great place to live but amazed as to what the developer is able to do.

[Advogado]

Originally Posted by Northwoods

Wow. I must have missed the part of the campaign slogan that said "IF WE CAN INCREASE DEVELOPER IMPACT FEES, then we will roll back a 25% tax increase.
They ran on the promise of rolling back the tax increase. They've failed.
Face it - the new commissioners have been totally outplayed by The Developer. You can whine about why they can't deliver. But the fact is, they haven't delivered.
The new commissioners have dug in their heels and adopted a very anti-developer agenda. That's been their Achille's heel. If they would try to find common ground and negotiate (If they would have negotiated the Developer's offer of 40% Impact Fees would we be further ahead?). But... they can't. And it's the residents of Sumter County that suffer.

During the campaign, Estep, Miller, and Search were very clear on the subject. Their proposal was to roll back the 25% property tax increase by increasing the Developer's sweetheart impact fee. It was the Developer's puppet Commissioners' protection of that sweetheart impact fee that necessitated the missing revenue being made up for with the tax increase.

The Developer, through his political and economic power, has been successful in continuing to protect his sweetheart impact fee. That is more than merely a defeat for Estep, Miller, and Search. It is a defeat for all the residents of Sumter County, who continue to pay for county infrastructure that should be paid for by the Developer.

[Normal]

If you were to take a look at the Citrus Grove, Hawkins or St. Catherine areas, you would be able to estimate typical pricing averages or means at about 460k (Not exact, but close). County taxes on that price are about 6289 dollars per year per unit.

That said, the windfall just from 100 homes would be a staggering 628,900. Remember this is just for a 100 homes at the average. There are literally 1000s of new homes south of ChittyChatty that have been built and sold the past couple of years. The income should be more than adequate for maintenance in the county. And there should be more than 3% taken off of taxes! If a “District” has 4,000 homes, then District 13 brings in a whopping 25 million dollars alone.