| Subject: Re: No roundtable 11/13 |
Author:
Dennis
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Date Posted: 08:35:59 11/17/03 Mon
In reply to:
warren
's message, "Re: No roundtable 11/13" on 15:00:27 11/13/03 Thu
Cute little face?! You must be suffering from severe myopia and you should put your vanity aside and acquire spectacles immediately!
I like Roger a lot. He's the kind of citizen-activist who is good for the town. I have worked with him on a couple of ad-hoc committees and he does great work.
On the other hand, Roger consistently does a couple of things that I disagree with, process-wise. This is over and above the standard "does his homework but gets the wrong answer" tag that I frequently tease him about.
Frequently, but not germane to this situation, Roger paints things with an overly broad brush. "Those politicians", "They", "Them", "Those Town Hall people". As if everybody is conspiring against him. My experience is quite the opposite. It's true and utter chaos, with each person or player pushing his or her own priorities and agendas. Cohesion, particularly the kind necessary to pull off a good old fashioned conspiracy, just doesn't exist naturally. It takes a lot of hard work to get people going in the same direction. It's like herding cats!
More specific to this situation. Roger also aims his (rhetorical) arrows at the wrong target. In this case, he says the meaning of the CPA law was changed somehow. It was not. The law clearly allows for "acquisition" to mean less than full and complete ownership, including rights, restrictions, easements, and so on. The question I have for Roger, which I may or may not have spit out during our little soirée, is as follows: If you can accomplish the same objective (i.e., retard development and retain some of the rural character of the town) by spending some money to purchase development rights or to restrict usage to agriculture, for example -- OR -- you can spend a lot more money to buy property outright -- Why, oh why would you spend more money rather than less?
I'm beginning to see the disconnect. I think it's because Roger either a) disagrees with the valuation of the development rights, or b) doesn't like the people who were involved. I can't help him with b), but either way, he should make the real argument he wants to make, rather than doing the side-step. If you're going to discuss the economic value of any asset (real estate or whatever) you have to take two basic values into consideration: 1) The "annuity" value that recurs from year to year -- the money that can be earned, or pleasure derived from, owning the asset, and 2) the "terminal" value -- what's the thing worth when you give up its use. In the case of developable acreage, a significant portion of the economic value is its terminal value at the so-called "highest and best use". In other words, what's it worth to a builder?! So if you have to pay somebody to give up a big proportion of the terminal value, well, that's going to be worth some real money -- but NOT the total value of purchasing both the annuity value and the rest of the terminal value.
If that's the argument Roger wants to make, then fine, let's hear him out with specific facts and circumstances. Maybe we are overvaluing developments rights. But maybe it's just that Roger can't buy the concept.
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