Housing Industry News from CA, NY, WI and the Nation
California
While much attention is paid to the lack of workforce housing across the nation, the housing situation in California has sunk to a level where a white collar worker earning a salary of $80,000 cannot enter the homeownership market.

That white collar worker is Lyle Wray, former director of the Ventura County Civic Alliance, who quit his job after a year, citing his inability to buy a home in the area as a key reason for his resignation.

Wray is moving to Hartford, CT where he will take a similar job as executive director of Capitol Region Council of Governments.

Source: Ventura County Star, March 17, 2004 

New York
Leaders in the town of Brookhaven on New York’s Long Island are having second thoughts about a proposed tax increase on home and land purchased to fund open-space acquisitions.  Instead, the town has proposed borrowing money to pay for open space through a $100-$200 million bond.

Bob Wieboldt, executive vice president of the Long Island Builders Institute, said his organization has not taken a position on a specific approach to community open space, but generally supports bonds over transfer taxes.

Last fall, Wieboldt’s group worked with a coalition to defeat a real estate transfer tax pushed by the town. The measure was declared misleading to voters by the state Supreme Court and never made it to the ballot.

Source: Newsday, April 8, 2004

Wisconsin
In a similar story, residents of Grafton in suburban Milwaukee will have the opportunity to vote on a proposal to raise property taxes in exchange for open space.

The proposed tax, 50 cents per $1,000 of the assessed value of the home, would bring an estimated $160,000 per year to city coffers, which is equal to a roughly 17% increase in the city's total rate of taxation.

The referendum was recommended by an appointed town committee who predicted in a report that if the town continues at its current rate of development, “it would be a matter of about 10 years that acres of developed land will equal or be greater than acres of open space.”

While the open space referendum is certain, town clerk Cathi Miller said it has not been determined how long the special tax will be levied or whether a proposed period will be included in the referendum question.

Source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, April 15, 2004

National
Are the states' bleak financial times a thing of the past? For the first time in three years, states across the country are reporting higher than expected tax revenues. Combined with scaled back spending, those revenues have allowed 32 states to finish their 2004 fiscal years with surpluses.

However, most of those surpluses are not enough to make up for the rising costs of Medicaid, education and pensions, items that make up a large chunk of most states' budgets.

Experts say that increased tax revenues are not enough to get states out of the deep holes of the last few years, and that several more years of increased tax revenues will be necessary to offset the gaps.

Source: New York Times, May 4, 2004, based on information from National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) report

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