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Originally Posted by DizzyEdge
Hmm... isn't it financially advantageous though for newer higher taxed units to appear within the current built city where services and transportation is already established? You'd think no levy within current communities would encourage densification.
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Some of the services and transportation will need to be upgraded as a result of more people living there, so money will need to be spent to upgrade them. Just as we demand that suburban growth pay for itself, is it not fair that redevelopment growth also pay for itself? The greenfield developers certainly feel this way, otherwise there can be a case made that greenfield is subsidizing the redevelopment. When it was the other way around, people were outraged. There shouldn't be a double standard.
Of course, it is very difficult to determine what costs are attributed to redevelopment growth (for instance, if a pipe is at 80% of its life already and needs to be replaced in a few years anyway, is it fair to charge the entire replacement to a redevelopment levy, when normal lifecycle maintenance would have had to replace it soon?). It is a very difficult thing to answer, which is why the redevelopment levy is still being worked on, and hasn't been approved or rolled out yet.