Key Facts: Fees and proffers raise the cost of homeownership and reduce the number of people who can qualify for their first home. Growth controls also reduce the amount of affordable housing stock, resulting in urban sprawl. Many proposals increase homeowner taxes, which unfairly target one segment of the population. Homeowners already pay a disproportionate share for infrastructure funding through the real property tax. Dedicated, broad-based funding methods are the most equitable and effective method to address infrastructure needs. GROWTH, INFRASTRUCTURE and REVENUE ALLOCATION POSITION: The Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS (NVAR) supports quality growth and livable communities which ultimately depend on a strong economic sector, sound efficient land use, adequate infrastructure funding and protection of the environment. NVAR will continue to work with state and local leaders to find solutions that sustain economic prosperity and that protect our high quality of life while addressing real concerns about infrastructure funding. NVAR supports the following: - predictability in the development process, - increased density and a mixture of uses in proximity to mass transit facilities and major arterials, - access to open space and parks, - affordable housing of various types and prices, - transportation systems that enhance access to work and services, - preservation of private property rights, - market-driven and incentive-based approaches to managing growth, and - balanced, equitable, and fair financing of infrastructure needs. Moreover, NVAR recognizes the needs of Virginia's localities to raise revenue to address critical infrastructure needs. This can best be accomplished by a restructuring of state and local taxes with more state revenue going to localities specifically earmarked for such infrastructure needs. Additional homeowner taxes (i.e. transfer, grantors or recordation taxes), authority for local adequate public facilities ordinances and other unnecessary growth-control measures would only serve to hinder the region?s economic prosperity. BACKGROUND: The imposition of growth controls would discourage corporate relocation and expansions, leading to a decrease in job formation, disposable income, and public revenue. This in turn causes graver shortages in the already much needed infrastructure funding for education, transportation and public safety services. Furthermore, growth controls reduce the amount of affordable housing stock forcing urban sprawl. Many of the localities requesting the strongest growth control tools are the same localities spending millions of dollars to bring new businesses to their communities. Many of their proposals which would increase home owner taxes fail to recognize an important fact: home owners already pay a disproportionate share for infrastructure funding through the real property tax. Additional homeowner taxes unfairly target one segment of the population. A dedicated, broad-based funding method is the most equitable and effective method to address these needs as opposed to: * ADEQUATE PUBLIC FACILITIES: In recent years, legislation has been suggested that would require a mandatory and more detailed Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) if local governments chose to "phase in" the pace of land development by amending their zoning ordinances. Any such legislation used as a no-growth tool would severely damage the economic stability of the real estate and economic development industries. * IMPACT FEES: Impact fees are based on the premise that developers pay for infrastructure necessitated by new developments. Impact fees generally are used to finance infrastructure -- such as roads, sewers, water, drainage, schools, parks and transit systems -- some government services and public services, and, to a lesser extent, affordable housing. Local governments turn to impact fees to deal with the cost of providing services to a growing population, especially a growing school population. Builders merely pass the cost of impact fees on to the new homebuyers. It is unfair to tax one class of citizens; those who purchase newly constructed homes, for the cost of additional services. Additionally, impact fees do not provide a reliable source of income due to the instability of the real estate market. Perhaps most important, impact fees raise the cost of homeownership and reduce the number of people who can qualify for their first home. * TRANSFER OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS (TDR'S): Mandatory TDRs are used by localities as a tool to control growth. A traditional TDR program allows the use of development rights under local zoning ordinances to be "transferred" from a designated "sending" area to a designated "receiving?" area. Landowners in the sending areas are given the opportunity to transfer their development rights to designated receiver parcels in other areas of the locality. Within the last few years, the General Assembly has explored more narrowly-defined TDR programs. These programs would allow development rights to be voluntarily transferred between specific parcels within a locality. Such limited use parcels can be beneficial for directing development in high growth areas. NVAR opposes any mandatory TDR legislation that solely addresses the shifting of population from one area to another without addressing services, tax shifting, economic development and equitable compensation to the landowner. STATUS: Numerous transportation impact fee bills were defeated, including HB 1666 (Marshall) statewide, HB 1667 (Marshall) in Loudoun County and HB 1724 (Cole) statewide. The final transportation compromise, HB 3202, gives localities the authority to assess impact fees on by-right development within any locality that has established an urban transportation service district. In addition, the impact fees could be assessed for projects that benefit a development, not just projects that are attributable to the development. Adequate Public Facilities bills HB 1718 (Marshall), HB 2814 (Sickles), SB 817 (Cuccinelli) and SB 1254 (Herring), which would deny rezoning applications in areas where there is inadequate road infrastructure, died in committee. Locally, both Loudoun and Prince William Counties approved a one-year freeze on rezoning applications in late 2006. Loudoun also approved by a 5 to 4 vote a plan that reduces the total number of new homes that can be built in Loudoun's western two-thirds from 37,000 to roughly half that.