HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-30-23 Public Comment - L. Witt - Housing and TaxesFrom:Lisa Witt
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Taxes
Date:Wednesday, August 30, 2023 1:57:35 PM
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City Commissioners,
Please understand that we cannot tax our way out of this housingaffordability problem. Property taxes are a huge contributing factor to why
our housing expenses are too high. If you tack on fees here and there to
support special interest groups - a minority of us- then the majority of us
pay more. As a middle class citizen, I am finding the ever-increasingproperty taxes a substantial burden and potentially a reason to be forced
out of my home and my hometown. Please let that sink in. I have a home.
I can afford the mortgage, but I may not be able to keep up with the
taxes. And before you go thinking that you should create another tax tohelp low-income or fixed-income folks, those already exist and cost the
rest of us.
Several of you have made the comment that the market isn't keeping upwith additional supply; and to a point, I agree. The biggest contributing
factor to our high prices is arguably the unrelenting demand to live here.
However, a quick search on Zillow (Aug. 30) yields a result of 308
properties available for rent in Bozeman with 61 of them priced below$2000/month. That's considerably more units available than I would have
anticipated and that the BTU, media and others would lead you to believe.
There are also literally thousands of new builds coming online right now,
so is the problem supply or is it affordability? How are we definingaffordable? HUD would know. We have at least a dozen low-income
housing projects scattered throughout the city. We have Section 8 housing
vouchers. We have HRDC, Family Promise, Haven, Love Inc. and several
other nonprofits that serve those in need. So is forcing the already tax-exhausted property owners additional taxes and fees to support affordablehousing really appropriate? Given that voters turned down the
affordable housing levy at the ballot, I would say unequivocally no. Please
stop trying to subvert the will of voters. Michelich and the commission'ssneaky workaround for the denied levy was to increase our city servicefees and bake in subsidies for your failed initiative? Even if it's legal for
you to bypass the electorate, it certainly isn't ethical.
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Cunningham's assessment that we havehad a housing shortage for the better part of 2 decades. When I moved
home to Bozeman in 2009, I worked for a property management
company. I estimate that at any given time, we had about 25-40vacancies out of approximately 400 total rental units. These properties
were primarily 2 and 3 bedroom apartments that rented for $600-900/month yet we had to be creative with move-in specials and various
incentives to fill vacant units. I suspect that the housing surplus began in
2008 with the financial meltdown, then didn't balance until about the
middle of 2012. Even in 2015 we had 3-bedrooms renting for $900/month.
So what's changed since then? The dizzying frenzy of newcomers and
tourists since the pandemic cannot be discounted with regard to demand
to visit and live in Bozeman. Inflation and the cost of just about everycarrying costs on properties - property taxes and assessments, water,
sewer, trash, insurance, Northwestern Energy, fees for lawn maintenance,
snow removal, tradespeople, etc.- have also risen substantially. Land,
labor and materials are sky-high. I actually believe that the pendulum,though, is finally swinging in the other direction and that we are going to
be overbuilt soon. Again, there are literally thousands of units under
construction right now.
The growth and increased tax base supports itself to some extent (impact
fees, SIDs, property tax base) but for any gaps in city needs, is there a
way of taxing tourists rather than property owners?-fees small enough
that the tourists wouldn't bat an eye, but that could providemeaningful relief for the rest of us? More specifically, how about raising
the local bed tax? How about local airfare fees? How about car rental
surcharges? How about enforcing existing regulations on short term
rentals by collecting fees for properties out of compliance? Would feesfrom having all properties in compliance be considerable? Certainly a local
sales tax could provide meaningful relief.
Please look to harness the strength of our robust tourist industry ratherthan burdening tax-fatigued property owners. You are bleeding the
property tax well dry.
Thank you,Lisa Witt