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Comment by woah | Hacker News Reader

You are quite simply wrong. Here is a map showing how next door neighbors frequently have a 10x difference in property taxes paid on equivalent dwellings: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/map-bay-area-property-ta...

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Holy shit! Just an example I found, 230 Atherton Ave, Atherton, CA 94027 vs 234 Atherton Ave, Atherton, CA 94027, both absolute mansions with pools looking at them on google maps and the former even has a tennis court. Property taxes paid: 8,000 for the former and 200,000 for the latter. Absolute insanity!

You're both right. Property taxes can increase by up to 2% per year, and new owners frequently pay far more than old owners because property has appreciated significantly in coastal metros with limited space for new construction.

This had been especially obvious because historically low interest rates have enabled a lot of asset appreciation, with real estate being one example. High real estate prices lead to high property taxes, which makes the difference in taxes paid much more obvious.

NIMBYism also plays a part, but I think people routinely overlook that developers often don't improve local facilities in line with local housing projects, which can lead to all kinds of awfulness. That new 1000 unit apartment complex also needs 1000+ parking spaces, along with other improvements in local infrastructure in proportion to the increase in population, but a developer won't care about that unless someone forces them to care.

1. You're implying that increased housing density makes it harder to find infrastructure. This is just false since high density makes infrastructure cheaper per person.

2. Why should it be the developers jobs to build out new infrastructure that isn't directly needed by their building. It's their job to build housing which brings people, those people bring taxes and those taxes pay for upgrades to infrastructure.

I'm not implying it's harder to find infrastructure. I'm arguing that developers don't want to pay for any infrastructure improvements needed to keep services operating in the same manner with more people. Like everyone else, they're self interested and will act in ways that maximize their own interests, even if it externalizes certain costs to the surrounding community. I suspect it's also more expensive per person to upgrade existing infrastructure compared to building it new.

In terms of who should improve infrastructure, it doesn't really matter who does it, but I think either local government or the developer should be required to do it and not be allowed to let things slide. I focus on the developer because they're the first in the process, but it doesn't matter if instead the city requires the developer to build in the infrastructure improvement costs and does it themselves. The only position I have is that it should get done.

Sorry find was me mistyping "fund".

Btw what infrastructure are you talking about? Water, electrics, roads or sewage I'm guessing.

I gotcha. I'm also thinking of mass transit, parking, retail, and probably a few more things I've forgotten about. Even the local geography/weather can play a part in terms of pollution. If we go from a subdivision with 40 houses to apartments with 4,000 units and update the existing infrastructure, 4,000+ cars starting up every day could result in a significant increase in exhaust pollution that we may not be able to design around. The climate/geography are going to be the climate/geography.

They do pay. Major developments get slapped with a mello-roos tax which leads to even larger disparity in taxes paid between long term resident and new residents. It’s huge, you could be paying $20k in taxes while the person down the street is paying $5k.

Mello Roos doesn't make the developer pay, they make the people in the special district pay. The developer gets to sell the units without any concern for what more people will do to local infrastructure.

I guess they could be $15k/year, but I've never seen an example that high. My mom lives in Yucca Valley and has two or three Mello Roos items (water district, local community college, and something else), and I think maybe pays about $600 total for them.

That’s cheap. This is Playa del Rey area in LA which has Google,FB, and other regional offices. Plus 1.2% property tax.

https://playavistaexperts.com/buying-selling-resources/mello...

That's a good point, and I should probably be thinking about Mello Roos in terms of percent of property value or something.

It's a ton off money either way, although I guess not surprising in Playa del Rey.

Here's a link to the map https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/

This tweet highlights some of the insaneness: https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1265719788875272192

Someone pays $806 per year, living next to someone who pays $27,732 per year.

taxfairnessproject.org Worth a look

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