Affordable Housing

The city has aquired numerous tracts of land for so called Affordable Housing.  However by removing these lots from the private sector, the city has drastically affected the supply/demand curve and is contributing to the high prices of homes in Flagstaff.

The city's current Affordable housing plan is basically a form of communism.  The few people that will get to live on this government owned land will have a huge competitive advantage over their neighbors.  They will be able and willing to work for lower wages due to their lower overhead.  Imagine being self-employed in Flagstaff with a regular mortgage and trying to compete against another self-employed person whose overhead is lower because he lives in Government subsidized housing.  The city will effectively be forcing out the first citizen who is not attached to the government tit.  Imagine a community where the leaders of the city all live in gated private golf courses and all the working class lives on government owned property - sounds a bit like slavery!  Let's NOT go in this direction.

A better solution to affordable housing is to lower the property taxes on primary residences and to start making private golf courses actually pay taxes!  Currently the working class is subsidizing communitites such as pine canyon.

Gated Communities are BAD for Flagstaff:

• Gated communiites create two classes of citizens: "You can drive in my neighborhood, but I can't drive in yours".
• Gated communities are an attempt to escape the problems in our city instead of helping to solve them.

Flagstaff needs a new Property tax policy that exempts local homeowners from being taxed and at the same time increases taxes on second homes.  We the people of Flagstaff do not exist for the service of the rich vacation home owners! Flagstaff belongs to the locals, not to the wealthy citizens of Scottsdale.  If others want to enjoy our Mountain town, they must learn to respect our way of life and to pay for their impact upon our community. Wealthy second home owners drive on our streets, use our emergency services and enjoy the town that we have worked hard to build, yet they contribute little in the way of taxes.  Only about 9% of the city budget comes from property taxes.  Most of it comes from Sales taxes, yet the second home owners are not buying their goods and services here.  They make most of their purchases outside of Flagstaff (usually in Maricopa county).  Much of the lumber and the Labor used to build pine canyon was purchased outside of Northern Arizona!

Don't let Flagstaff become another Aspen Colorado!

"While aquiring wealth is not evil, the use of wealth must not be to the oppression of others."