Where I Stand -- Irene Porter: Home builders helping to pay for growth in many ways

WHAT SHOULD BUILDERS do to pay for growth? That's a question many who write letters to local newspaper editors regularly debate. Differing opinions exist. I am addressing this issue in this column.

In letters to editors, residents often call for builders to pay for various improvements such as parks, roads, water and sewer improvements. The news is that they already do pay for these very things. In fact, they pay 57-plus different impact fees, taxes and special fees on each home built.

Specifically what do they pay for in support of growth? Let's begin with parks. Home builders pay an average of $700 per house for new parks. That generates at least $14 million annually. Some builders even construct major parks at no cost to the cities, turning them over to the municipalities free of charge upon completion. During the past 10 to 15 years, the park tax has been a major contributor to the building of new parks, acquisition of land and adding new facilities to existing parks.

What about roads? Home builders pay for and build the streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, etc., surrounding the new homes they construct. They pay for the ancillary roads and other improvements feeding into the neighborhoods they build. They also pay a transportation tax of $500 per house for each house built. The tax collected is used to fund major transportation projects such as the beltway. Builders pay an average of $10 million annually into that fund.

Once roads are in, home builders pay for the traffic signals at intersections bordering their projects. Traffic signals cost upward of $40,000 for each corner of an intersection. Home builders' dollars, not tax dollars, pay for traffic signs and street signs in new housing developments.

A builder putting in new homes pays for everything from flood control to protecting threatened species and fauna. Space does not permit a review of all the fees and taxes already placed on new homes. But when one considers that 25 percent of the cost of a new home is attributable to these fees, and just short of 20,000 new homes are sold each year in Las Vegas, one gets a feel for how much the building of new homes supports the community.

New housing also contributes millions each year to a low-income housing trust fund and to school capital construction through real property transfer taxes. Currently builders not only install all the water, sewer and storm drainage for developments, but also pay local agency and regional connection fees. Current water-connection fees -- local and regional in one entity -- are $5,000 per house.

Builders look for others who benefit from our community's services to help pay for them. For instance, regardless of the outcome of the public vote on the 1/4-penny sales tax to fund water and sewer projects, home builders are going to pay the majority of the tab for these projects. Even if the tax is increased, builders alone will fund more than half the project, with the big difference between no tax and a tax increase being that with the increase, tourists' money will replace some of the money residents and builders will have to pay. Tourists using our water should help pay for it.

Those who believe that people moving here are the source of growth and that taxing new homes is the best way to make newcomers pay the bill for growth are putting their faith in a fallacy. The fact is that at least 60 percent of the new homes purchased locally are bought by existing residents. Also, more existing or resale homes are purchased annually than are new homes. Further taxing new homes does not reach 60 percent of the valley's newcomers.

The 57-plus fees already assessed on new homes hit long-term residents much harder than they hit new residents. I hope people will support the building industry's efforts to keep new homes affordable so that residents already living in the valley will be able to buy new homes if they desire.

When one considers that home builders respond to growth created by other causes -- positive impacts such as a vibrant economy, jobs and weather, which draws those wanting a better life to our sunny sands -- one must look to all who benefit from this thriving economy to pay their way. Home builders are doing exactly what they should be doing to pay for growth. They carry their weight, and will continue to do so. They and their thousands of employees are also voters, taxpayers and citizens of this exciting and special community.

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